Principal PCB Designer

Viasat, Inc.•Karlovy Vary, Arizona

107d

About The Position

We are seeking an experienced Principal PCB Designer to provide senior level technical leadership and execution for complex printed circuit board designs across the Space Infrastructure organization. This role serves as a technical authority for PCB layout, design quality, and execution strategy, while also acting as a team lead to improve consistency, speed, and overall design excellence. This role includes management responsibilities including scheduling and prioritizing work for direct reports, task assignments, and yearly performance reviews. The Principal PCB Designer also supports critical development efforts including flight hardware, ground systems, and test equipment boards. This role provides supplemental layout capacity on high risk or resource constrained programs. Daily tasks will involve utilizing Mentor Graphics Xpedition layout tools, including CES, to complete your designs. Your design work will follow IPC standards, as well as company and contract manufacturer DFx guidelines.

Requirements

Associate Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering Technology electrical engineering or equivalent professional experience
10 or more years of professional PCB layout experience with ownership of highly complex designs
Expert understanding of signal integrity, power integrity, EMI and EMC, high speed digital, RF, and power electronics layout
5+ years of direct experience using Mentor Xpedition and CES.
Management experience leading a technical team.
Schematic capture experience.
Demonstrated experience leading technical reviews and influencing cross functional engineering teams
Strong experience producing and reviewing complete fabrication and assembly release packages
Ability to operate independently as a technical authority and define solutions to complex problems
Strong written and verbal communication skills
Demonstrated examples of reducing cost, complexity, or improving manufacturability of PCBs.
US Citizenship required
Ability to travel up to 10%

Nice To Haves

Experience serving as the most senior PCB technical resource on a team or program
Background in space, aerospace, defense, automotive, or other high reliability hardware environments
Bachelor’s degree in any engineering discipline.
Familiarity with constraint driven design, automation, scripting, or CAD tool customization
Demonstrated ability to raise design quality, execution efficiency, and organizational best practices
Multi-layer Flex and Rigid-flex circuits.
Complex Multi-layer PWB utilizing high-speed materials, featuring microstrip, strip line, and differential routing, controlled impedance, mix of low-noise RF/analog circuitry.
Digital designs with various pin counts and fine-pitch BGAs, RF transmission lines, matched lengths, and delay control lengths.
Experience with JTAG, RGMI, DSP, DDR, LVDS, SERDES, and Ethernet design.
RF layout development with partitioning of circuits utilizing shields, specific mounting, and grounding requirements. All design criteria defined by engineering specifications.
Knowledgeable with hierarchical schematics and layout reuse schemes is a plus.

Responsibilities

Provide senior level PCB design leadership across multiple programs and product lines
Scheduling and prioritizing work for direct reports and making task assignments
Produce PCB layouts utilizing Mentor Graphics Xpedition.
Lead PCB layout for the most complex and critical designs, including multilayer, high speed, mixed signal, RF, and power dense boards
Define component placement strategies, routing architecture, constraint sets, and layer stackups with minimal direction
Own PCB layout execution from early architectural trade studies through fabrication and assembly release
Provide expert input on signal integrity, power integrity, EMI and EMC risk mitigation, and layout tradeoffs
Serve as the technical escalation point for complex layout challenges, design issues, yield concerns, and corrective actions
Lead and participate in schematic, placement, routing, and release design reviews across programs
Define, maintain, and improve PCB design standards, constraints, and workflows
Improve design quality, consistency, and execution speed across the PCB team
Provide architecture level feedback to electrical, RF, mechanical, manufacturing, thermal, and test engineers
Work directly with fabrication and assembly partners to address advanced technology, manufacturability, and yield
Mentor junior and senior PCB designers through hands on guidance, reviews, and technical coaching
Support prototype build, debug, and iteration efforts in collaboration with hardware and test teams
Drive low-cost approaches and practices in PCB design