Role: Power Electronics Hardware Engineer

Project Type: Safety Adjacent industrial/mobile controller

Location:East Bay, CA| Engagement: Contract

Seniority: Senior (hands-on design owner)

Pay Range$80-120 / hour

Mission

Own the design and delivery of a ruggedized control module that:

• Powers and controls actuators, fans, and sensors
• Powers and communicates with downstream electronics
• Provides a safety compliant comms pathway between a quad skid and pack system
• Integrates 1G Single Pair Ethernet (1000BASE T1), CAN FD, and MCU/MPU compute

Must Have Skills (Hard Requirements)

1. Embedded power/hardware ownership

   • Designed end to end power trees: 48V input 24V & 5V bucks3V3/1V8/1V1 LDOs
   • Load control using motor drivers and high side drivers (HSDs) with diagnostics

2. Industrial/automotive networking

   • CAN FD bring-up, bus diagnostics, and fault handling (bit rate setup, termination, CRC/fault confinement basics)
   • 1000BASET1 (Single Pair Ethernet) with PHY selection, magnetics/CM choke usage, and layout for controlled impedance
   • Experience integrating an Ethernet switch (BGA ~196 pin, 0.8 mm pitch) in a multiport design

3. Compute & SoC integration

   • MCU (LQFP) for real-time control and safety supervision
   • MPU SOM (SMARC carrier) integration (power sequencing, boot, peripherals, Linux/RTOS bring-up coordination)
   • MCU?MPU comms via SPI/UART/CAN?FD (bonus: iso SPI, I²C, JTAG bring-up)

4. Schematic/PCB & layout for EMC

   • 4–8 layer boards with high current paths, star grounds, split analog/digital, impedance controlled routing for GbE T1 & high speed SPI
   • DFM with BGA fan out, power/thermal design, and test point strategy

5. Safety & reliability mindset

   • Hardware watchdogs, brownout/UVLO/OVP, reverse polarity, surge/transient protection
   • Graceful degradation: MCU retains control if MPU/Ethernet fails

Nice to Have Skills

• Automotive/industrial standards exposure (ISO13485/14971/26262, IEC61508, CISPR/EMC pre comp)
• Experience with galvanic isolation for CAN/ISOSPI
• Thermal analysis and enclosure level EMI design for motor loads
• Linux driver bring up on SOMs, or boot sequencing with PMICs
• Production test fixture design (JTAG/SWD, boundary scan, automated functional test)

Responsibilities

• Architect and document the hardware system (power, compute, comms, IO)
• Select major components: MCU, MPU SOM, Ethernet switch & PHYs, buck/LDO, HSDs, motor drivers, ADCs/DACs, IO expanders
• Own schematics, layout guidance, and design reviews; coordinate with PCB layout
• Bring up and validate: power sequencing, comms buses (CAN FD, 1000BASE T1), motor/fan control, sensor IO
• Implement safety critical behaviors under MCU control; design for graceful degradation
• Create production ready documentation: BOM, test plans, power budgets, interface control docs

START ASAP!