Design Automation and Scripting Intern

TRIDENT SYSTEMS LLC

7d • Onsite

About The Position

Trident Systems is seeking a motivated and technically curious intern to join our Software/Electrical Engineering team and contribute to the development of custom design automation tooling within Altium Designer. This internship is focused on extending and improving an in-house Delphi Script-based automation framework that performs variant-aware design rule checking (DRC) on high-reliability, space-grade printed circuit board assemblies. The intern will work directly with the EE team to understand real-world PCB design constraints through Altium Designer's native scripting API. This is an excellent opportunity for a student with an interest in embedded systems, hardware design tools, or software infrastructure to gain hands-on experience in a professional engineering environment working on mission-critical aerospace hardware.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Electrical Engineering, or a closely related field.
• Foundational understanding of object-oriented or procedural programming concepts; prior exposure to Pascal, Delphi, or any strongly typed language (C, C++, Java) is applicable.
• Ability to read, trace, and reason about existing unfamiliar code in order to identify bugs and propose improvements.
• Comfortable working in a Windows-based engineering desktop environment with specialized EDA tooling.
• Must be geographically located within a commutable distance to the Trident location.

Nice To Haves

• Prior coursework or project experience involving embedded systems, hardware description, PCB design, or EDA tools (Altium, KiCad, Eagle, Cadence, or similar).
• Basic understanding of PCB or embedded hardware concepts — including components, nets, layers, or assemblies — at a level consistent with an introductory EE or ECE course.
• Familiarity with any scripting or automation framework — Python, VBA, Delphi, Tcl, or similar — applied to file processing, report generation, or tool integration.
• Experience generating structured output formats such as HTML, XML, CSV, or JSON from code for reporting or data exchange purposes.
• Understanding of software quality practices including basic unit testing, code review participation, and version control with Git.
• Interest in aerospace, defense, or high-reliability electronics and an appreciation for the design rigor those domains require.
• Strong attention to detail, comfort with technical ambiguity, and a methodical approach to debugging unfamiliar systems.
• Ability to communicate technical findings clearly — verbally and in writing — to a mixed audience of software and hardware engineers.

Responsibilities

• Extend and maintain Delphi Script (.pas) automation scripts running inside the Altium Designer scripting environment, interfacing with the PCB and schematic object model APIs.
• Build and refine HTML report generation logic that produces clearly formatted DRC failure reports with net-level detail, area measurements, and actionable inspector guidance.
• Integrate PCB filter query generation directly in the Altium PCB editor following script execution.
• Collaborate with EE and SW engineers to understand design requirements, interpret failure modes, and validate script outputs against manually reviewed PCB designs.
• Write clear inline documentation and code comments sufficient for team members without prior Altium scripting experience to maintain the codebase.
• Participate in design and code reviews, incorporating feedback to improve robustness and performance on large, high-component-count PCB assemblies.
• Perform other duties as assigned

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Intern
• Number of Employees: 11-50 employees