Electrical Engineer

Job Title: Electrical Engineer

• Focus;
• Drive By Wire
• Carrier Board (FPGA, facing cameras)
• Digital Electronics, Domain Controller (Compute Box)

Headcount: 7

YoE: 5 yrs

Location / Travel: San Francisco, CA

Team/Department: Electrical / Hardware [Transport]

Reporting to: Tom Mulroy,

Reason for hiring: Needs to build our own electronics to power the software that runs and drives the car

Offer Visa Sponsorship: Yes

Selling:

• All products you design will be installed on the first fleet of vehicles deployed in the real world for testing, at a high volume before end of the year.

Immediate Projects:

• Drive By Wire
  • Designing components on Squid board (PCB circuit board), vehicle DBW interface
  • Steering interface board, same idea as above
  • Power distribution systems (power system design)
• Carrier Board, Compute
  • New Generation Compute System

Responsibilities:

Vehicle Interface & Controls

• Analyze and document CAN bus, J1939, Analog and direct digital signals, direct signaling, and vehicle-specific communication protocols on heavy equipment
• Create comprehensive technical documentation for electrical interfaces and vehicle control systems
• Document electrical schematics, pinouts, and signal specifications for integration points

Drive-by-Wire System Development

• Design and implement custom circuit boards for electronic and actuator-based vehicle operation
• Implement fail-safe mechanisms and redundant control pathways for safety-critical systems
• Work with cross-team engineers to design custom wiring harnesses and connector solutions for harsh industrial environments

General

Advanced PCB Design

• Design multi-layer motherboards for compute units handling real-time control systems
• Implement high-speed differential signaling for camera interfaces, GNSS, and LiDAR signaling
• Design mixed-signal circuits combining power electronics with sensitive sensor processing
• Adhere to high standards for signal robustness and DFA

Hardware Testing & Documentation

• Document testing requirements for environmental durability and system reliability of hardware components
• Design and build hardware test apparatus for validation and troubleshooting
• Support quality assurance processes and technical documentation standards

Integration & Deployment Support

• Support field installations and troubleshoot hardware issues at customer sites
• Work closely with software and mechanical teams to optimize system integration
• Collaborate with team members to develop tight system interfaces in a rapid iteration environment

Must Have:

• Designing circuit boards
• Schematic Design and Layout
• ECAD, Schematic capture and layout
• KiCAD (we use)
• Common Electrical Tools (multi multimeter, Oscilloscope)

Nice to Have:

• Radar, LiDAR, Sensors, Camera Interfaces
• DFM (Design for Manufacturing)
• Testing & QA

Ideal Background: Automotive or vehicle systems (including drones)

Ideal Education: Electrical Engineering

Companies to Target:

• Tesla
• SpaceX
• Humanoid potentially
• Zoox, Cruise, Waymo, Nuro etc
• Zipline, Skydio
• Defense startups
• NO Defense conglomerates like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, etc. (avoid in general - tend to be slow and process driven)

Have you hired for this kind of role in the past?

• Challenges?
• What's worked, what hasn't?
• What did you like, what should we stay away from?

Any technical qualification questions with black & white answers the recruiter can use to vet?

• Q: Have you designed a PCB? What did it do? Was it for work or a hobby? What ECAD software did you use?
• A: they must have designed a PCB, ideally for work. If it's for a hobby, ask them to explain & take notes on what it did.

Rippling Posting - DBW EE

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