Electrical Engineer (Prism)
About The Position
Northwood is seeking an Electrical Engineer to own the non-RF electronics design for Prism, its 2.4-meter parabolic antenna for high-throughput satellite links. The role covers digital compute, power, embedded, and mixed-signal hardware alongside Prism’s RF chain, from architecture and component selection through schematic capture, PCB layout, bring-up, and production release. Northwood is a space infrastructure company developing communications technology and a global network of phased-array and parabolic ground stations for satellite missions, including national security, global connectivity, and disaster response. Its vertically integrated approach includes designing, building, and deploying scalable systems.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or a related engineering discipline.
- 3–4 years of professional experience designing electronics hardware, with ownership of boards from schematic through bring-up.
- Hands-on design experience with high-speed digital systems built around FPGAs and/or microcontrollers.
- Experience designing board-level clocking and power distribution for complex digital systems.
- Proficiency in schematic capture, PCB stack-up definition, and layout of complex multilayer boards.
- Working knowledge of signal integrity, power integrity, and EMI/EMC design practices.
Nice To Haves
- Design experience with dense, high-pin-count FPGAs, such as AMD/Xilinx UltraScale+ or RFSoC, and related DDR, SerDes, and JESD204B/C interfaces.
- Low-jitter clock design experience, including PLLs, jitter cleaners, clock fan-out, and clocking for high-speed data converters.
- Power electronics design experience, including DC-DC converters, multiphase and point-of-load regulators, sequencing, hot-swap, and protection circuits.
- Embedded hardware design for microcontroller-based control and monitoring, with interfaces such as I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, and Ethernet.
- Mixed-signal design experience, including precision analog, data converter front ends, and sensor interfaces.
- Lab skills with oscilloscopes, spectrum and network analyzers, and electronic loads, as well as soldering and hot-air rework.
- Python or similar experience for test automation and data analysis.
Responsibilities
- Own the electrical design of Prism’s non-RF electronics, including high-speed digital, power electronics, embedded control, and mixed-signal circuits.
- Architect and design high-density boards built around FPGAs, microcontrollers, high-speed data converters, and peripherals such as DDR memory, multi-gigabit SerDes, and 10/100G Ethernet.
- Define clocking architectures, including reference selection, clock distribution, jitter budgets, and synchronization across boards and subsystems.
- Design power trees from input power and conversion stages through point-of-load regulators, sequencing, monitoring, and protection.
- Design mixed-signal interfaces between digital and analog/RF domains, including ADC/DAC front ends, control loops, and sensor and telemetry circuits.
- Drive schematic capture, define PCB stack-ups, and lead layout of complex multilayer boards, with attention to signal integrity, power integrity, and EMI/EMC.
- Lead board bring-up and design verification, characterize performance in the lab, and iterate designs for performance, cost, and manufacturability.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
