Electrical Engineer – Job Order 3426

Electrical Engineer – Job Order 3426

Location: Seven Corners, VA 22044
3 to 8 years of experience
Compensation: negotiable
H-1b sponsorship available for existing H-1B’s
Stock options

Located in the northern Virginia, Washington, DC metro area, my client is a startup with patented communications technology that enables text messaging anywhere in the world with direct satellite to mobile device communications which does not require special dedicated receivers to operate, just your standard mobile device. They have series A funding and will soon be going out for series B.

As a Senior Electrical Engineer, you will function in many roles to use and expand your knowledge of electronics and RF hardware and software. You will perform analyses, design, implementation, optimization and enhancement of subsystems utilized in our nanosatellite bus and its communications payload. Working with other Electrical Engineers, you will design and assemble circuit boards and participate in the iterative design, integration, and test of our nanosatellite bus and payload electronics hardware and software. As part of the design cycle you will need fluency with simulation and design tools, test equipment for validation of brassboards, and be comfortable in our lab environments. In particular, since our payloads operate at frequencies from UHF to Ka Band your work with involve use of spectrum analyzers and other RF equipment. You will also be involved as part of the design team in component and vendor selections.

If you enjoy the challenge of a broad role and have a track record of creative thinking to solve unconventional problems, then we look forward to meeting you!

Core Responsibilities:

Because this is a small company, the Senior Electrical Engineer will straddle engineering work in the domains of electrical, RF, and software engineering and will design primarily at the schematic and layout level.

Design of spacecraft bus and payload hardware (including single-board computers, FPGAs, SoCs, processors, sensors, SDRs, LNAs, filters, amplifiers, etc.) and software.

Design circuit board schematics, select circuit components, utilize development boards and/or breadboards to prove out circuit designs, develop circuit board layout, assemble circuit boards, test circuit boards to prove they work as desired, and debug as required.

Develop firmware and test software for your circuit boards.

Generate production-level tests for circuit boards designed.

Create and maintain technical documentation for spacecraft bus and payload design and development.

Participate in design reviews at all levels.

Perform and document failure analyses on problem areas and results of testing.

Assist mechanical engineers in the mechanical integration of designed components into spacecraft bus and payload including thermal requirements of your designs.

Support spacecraft payload integration, testing, and delivery to launch and/or spacecraft bus partners/vendors.

Qualifications:

A Bachelor’s degree (or better) in Electrical Engineering.

5+ years of experience in circuit board design and development of discrete logic, signal conditioning, power circuits and RF PCBs. Schematic capture and PCB layout using Altium. Circuit simulation using LTSpice or similar. RF circuits will commonly involve separate ground, power and 50 ohm signal planes, and shielding as required.

Hands-on experience with single-board computers, microcontrollers, FPGAs, GPUs, CPUs, SoCs, software-defined radios, RF components, and antennas.

Ability to read and understand datasheets for integrated circuits and other complex components.

Working knowledge of electronic test equipment including logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and spectrum analyzers.

Experience using Linux based systems.

Recent participation in projects developing space payload hardware and software (preferably communications systems).

Programming proficiency in one or more programming languages is highly desired (e.g. C++, C, Python, MATLAB, etc.)

Hands-on experience programming microcontrollers and with integrating hardware and software systems is desired.

Familiarity with FPGA programming (VHDL or Verilog) and Altera or Xilinx FPGAs is desired.

Must be good with computers. Fluent in Linux, Windows, and Mac OSX; Very capable with Microsoft Office (Excel, Project, PowerPoint, Word).

Must have good communication skills and be able to work independently as well as in a team environment.