Principal Electrical Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

Position Title:  Principal Electrical Engineer
Requisition ID: 1844
Position Location:  Fairfax, VA / Concord, NH
Position Reports To:  Senior Manager, Electrical Engineering
Supervises Others:  No

  At Trident Systems Space Electronic Systems (SES) division, we believe in the power of using strong engineering principles to drive innovation and solve complex problems. We foster a culture of rigorous engineering and continuous improvement, leveraging the full knowledge of our organization through collaborative product development processes that include design and peer reviews. We combine our expertise in space electronics with right-sized development processes to create innovative, high-performance space-based electronic systems that meet our customers' evolving needs.

We are a mission partner supporting DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers. We develop complex, radiation effects mitigated, designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.

Position Summary

The Principal Electrical Engineer serves as a senior technical leader within Trident Systems’ Space Electronic Systems (SES) division, responsible for architecting, developing, and guiding advanced embedded hardware solutions for space and defense applications. This role provides deep subject matter expertise across the full hardware development lifecycle—from requirements definition through design, integration, test, and delivery—while ensuring designs meet stringent performance, reliability, and radiation-mitigation requirements. The Principal Electrical Engineer partners closely with cross-functional engineering teams, program leadership, and customers to solve complex technical challenges, support program execution and business development efforts, and shape the long-term technology roadmap for the organization. As the discipline’s senior-most individual-contributor technical authority, the Principal Electrical Engineer holds final design review and sign-off authority on complex, high-risk, or first-of-kind embedded hardware efforts.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage engineering discipline personnel
• Subject matter expert for embedded hardware engineering discipline; serves as final technical review and sign-off authority on complex, high-risk, or first-of-kind designs, ensuring designs meet Trident engineering standards prior to release
• Lead embedded hardware development process: requirements specification, characterization, simulation, high-speed digital design, signal processing, schematic capture, PCB layout and routing, PCA testing, and system integration
• Conduct peer reviews of design work and documentation
• Provide technical guidance to discipline team, other engineering teams, PMO, EGD and VP
• Support project execution as needed based on severity of resource demand and challenge of design
• Support business development efforts
• Represent Trident Systems Engineering with customer and vendor interface as a subject matter expert
• Support ES technology roadmap by identifying goals for department and plans for execution
• Ability to support travel or off-site work, as needed. 
• Perform other duties as assigned. 

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or related technical degree
• Demonstrated experience serving as final technical design authority / sign-off for complex or first-of-kind embedded hardware programs
• 9+ years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree OR 7+ years with a Master’s degree
• Experience with mixed-signal PCA development, utilizing High Density Interconnect (HDI) PCBs and high speed (> 1 GHz) components/circuits
• Experience with FPGA and microprocessor development, including hardware descriptor languages (i.e. Verilog, VHDL)
• Experience with hardware integration, test, and debug tools such as logic analyzers, scopes, emulators
• Demonstrated experience implementing PCI, PCIe, cPCI, VME, or VPX standards (VITA 46, VITA 65)
• Experience leading or supporting formal hardware design review milestones (e.g., PDR, CDR, TRR) for complex or first-of-kind programs
• Demonstrated experience designing electronic hardware for aerospace or maritime applications

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience analyzing and mitigating radiation effects (e.g., SEU, SEL) in space electronics hardware
• Experience qualifying hardware designs for extreme environments (TVAC, shock, vibration) and EMI/EMC compliance
• Experience with Cost Account Management (CAM)

Pay Information

Full-Time Salary Range: $114,000 - $211,000
Please Note: Actual compensation offered will be determined based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, education, certifications, internal equity, business considerations, and geographic location where applicable.

Benefits 

Hired applicants may be eligible for benefits including but not limited to:

• Health benefits
  • Medical 
  • Dental 
  • Vision
  • Basic life with AD&D
  • Short-term disability
  • Long term disability
  • Ancillary (Voluntary life with AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital, and pet)
  • Spending accounts (HSA, FSA, and DCFSA)
• Paid time off
• Holidays
• 401(k) (including company match)
• Tuition reimbursement
• Leaves (Parental, maternity, and military)
• Annual discretionary bonus (for eligible roles)

Trident Systems reserves the right to change or assign other duties to this position. 

Trident Systems is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. To request reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact  View email address on us.fitly.work .

Pay Transparency: The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)