Power Electronics Engineer
About The Position
Northwood is a modern space infrastructure company developing advanced communications technology and a global network of phased array ground stations. Its systems support satellite missions including national security, global connectivity, and disaster response. As an Electrical Engineer (Power Electronics), you will own the power conversion and distribution electronics for Prism, Northwood’s 2.4-meter parabolic antenna for high-throughput satellite links. You will design power systems for Prism’s high-power RF hardware and support electronics, taking designs from architecture through prototype, testing, and production. This is a hands-on role requiring experience designing, building, and debugging power electronics intended to operate reliably in the field.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or a related engineering discipline.
- 3–5+ years of power electronics hardware design experience.
- Hands-on experience designing switched-mode power converters (buck, boost, flyback, LLC, or similar) at hundreds of watts or more.
- Experience taking power hardware from schematic and layout through bring-up, characterization, and laboratory debugging.
- Proficiency with circuit simulation tools such as LTspice, PLECS, or SIMetrix.
- Comfort using power electronics test equipment, including oscilloscopes with differential and current probes, electronic loads, and power analyzers.
Nice To Haves
- Master’s degree or PhD in electrical engineering with a focus on power electronics.
- Kilowatt-class AC-DC and isolated DC-DC converter design, including power factor correction.
- Drain supply and bias design for GaN RF power amplifiers, including sequencing and low-ripple regulation.
- Protection circuitry design, including hot-swap, inrush limiting, overcurrent, and reverse-polarity protection.
- Input filter design and control-loop compensation for converter stability.
- Surge, lightning, and transient protection for grid-connected outdoor equipment.
- Magnetics design and wide-bandgap (GaN, SiC) power-stage design.
- Motor-drive power electronics for antenna positioners or motion-control systems.
- Thermal design and EMI/EMC mitigation for high-density power hardware.
- Design for manufacturing, production-test development, and reliability qualification.
Responsibilities
- Design power electronics for Prism, including AC-DC and DC-DC conversion, power distribution, and supplies for high-power RF amplifiers.
- Define Prism’s power architecture and evaluate system tradeoffs across efficiency, thermal load, reliability, cost, and deployment speed.
- Design load switching, sequencing, and power-path protection schemes, including fault detection and recovery.
- Perform schematic capture, oversee PCB layout, and bring up power hardware.
- Build circuit and system models to analyze and verify power-system performance, including stability, transient response, and efficiency.
- Define interfaces between the power system and Prism’s RF, digital, and motion-control loads.
- Qualify designs through environmental and EMI/EMC testing.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
