Embedded Electronics Engineer

HavocAI • San Diego, CA

10d • $150,000 - $175,000

About The Position

HavocAI is seeking an Embedded Electronics Engineer to design, build, and validate the hardware that powers our autonomous systems. This role is for someone whose instinct is to reach for a schematic before a terminal, and who takes pride in building boards that work the first time — and keep working in real-world operating environments.
This role sits at the hardware layer. You will own PCB design and bring-up across three core areas: power electronics and motor drive, embedded compute and SoC integration, and the vehicle electronics backbone that ties systems together. Software teams will own the stack above the hardware abstraction layer; your job is to ensure the hardware beneath it is fast, reliable, manufacturable, and ready for whatever platform comes next.

Requirements

• 4+ years of hands-on PCB design and hardware bring-up experience, including boards you personally took from schematic to validated prototype
• Proficiency with a professional EDA tool such as KiCad, Altium, Cadence, or equivalent
• Demonstrated depth in at least one of the following areas: power electronics / motor drive design or mixed-signal embedded compute hardware
• Strong understanding of PCB layout fundamentals for switching power, high-speed digital interfaces, and analog signal integrity
• Hands-on characterization experience using oscilloscopes, power analyzers, thermal cameras, bench power supplies, and related lab equipment
• Ability to write enough C/C++ to validate your own hardware, including register map tests and basic drivers
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving engineering environment where hardware quickly moves from prototype to field use

Nice To Haves

• ESC design, including FET selection, gate drive design, shoot-through protection, and motor commutation characterization
• SoC or SoM carrier board design, including USB3, PCIe, MIPI, power sequencing, and rail supervision
• CAN bus hardware design and termination; experience with DroneCAN, CANopen, or CAN FD is a plus
• Multi-layer PCB layout with controlled impedance, via stitching, and careful ground plane management
• Experience taking boards through DFM, DFA, and contract manufacturing production
• Inertial and environmental sensor integration, including IMUs, barometers, magnetometers, analog front-end design, and layout best practices
• Battery management and protection circuit design for LiPo or Li-ion packs
• Power electronics for EV drivetrains, industrial motor control, or robotics actuators
• Avionics hardware design for manned aviation, unmanned systems, or aerospace platforms
• Mixed-signal PCB design for instrumentation, industrial control, or test equipment
• Hardware engineering at a startup or defense contractor where you owned the full board lifecycle
• Research prototyping environments where hardware was actually built, tested, deployed, and iterated

Responsibilities

• Design and build electronic speed controllers and motor drive stages for brushless actuators across aerial, ground, and novel platforms
• Select and validate FETs, gate drivers, shunt resistors, and passives to meet current handling, thermal, and efficiency targets
• Implement low-level motor drive firmware, including FOC and BLDC commutation, on embedded MCUs as needed to validate and characterize hardware designs
• Conduct power stage characterization, including efficiency curves, thermal mapping, and protection behavior under fault and overload conditions
• Design telemetry signal chains for current sense, temperature, RPM, and related vehicle data
• Define electrical interfaces to upstream systems
• Work across voltage domains and platform types, adapting designs to the power budget, operating environment, and form factor of each vehicle
• Design and bring up custom carrier boards and daughter boards for SoC and System-on-Module platforms across HavocAI’s vehicle family
• Own schematic capture and PCB layout for mixed-signal boards integrating power, high-speed digital interfaces, and analog sensor chains
• Define and validate electrical interfaces between compute hardware and vehicle subsystems, including power rails, reset sequencing, SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, PCIe, and USB
• Conduct board bring-up and electrical validation, including rail profiling, signal integrity checks, and fault isolation
• Iterate hardware through DFM review, coordinate with contract manufacturers, and own the board revision process
• Design the electrical architecture that connects power, actuation, sensing, and compute subsystems across diverse vehicle types
• Specify and select connectors, cabling, EMI mitigation components, and protection circuits appropriate to each operating environment and vibration profile
• Define and document electrical interfaces between hardware and the software teams building above it, including pin definitions, timing constraints, and power requirements
• Support field validation and hardware debugging through flight test, drive test, and field deployment
• Contribute to hardware design standards and participate in reviews of other engineers’ work

Benefits

• 100% Employer paid Health, Dental and Vision Insurance for you and your families
• Life Insurance (Employer Paid)
• Ability to participate in the companies 401k program (Matching)
• Unlimited PTO policy with an enforced 2 week minimum
• Equity Package
• Work / Home Office Stipend
• Global Entry
• 16 Week Paid Parental Leave
• Monthly Health and Wellness Stipend

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed