Principal Product Systems Engineer

AEM

4d•Onsite

About The Position

AEM (Advanced Environmental Monitoring) is the global leader in innovative mission critical weather, wildfire and water monitoring and intelligence solutions. We aim to be the world’s essential source for environmental insights – enabling decisive action and positive outcomes for our customers and their constituents. Our family of innovators offers world-class hydrometeorological technologies and services, including sensors, dataloggers, telemetry, and advanced analytics and software. Our technology and services empower the communities and organizations to survive – and thrive – in the face of escalating environmental risks. Van Essen Instruments develops connected environmental monitoring solutions used globally for groundwater and surface water applications. Our products combine embedded electronics, firmware, mechanical design, cloud connectivity, and secure data transfer. We are seeking a Principal Product Systems Engineer to ensure engineering work progresses and results in production-ready products across our connected device portfolio. This is a hands-on engineering role focused on bringing together hardware, firmware, cloud connectivity, and manufacturing to produce reliable, compliant products for our global markets. This is a dynamic environment where you will work on multiple products in parallel, supporting new designs, product updates, and cybersecurity improvements, while working with internal engineers and external partners to move products from concept through production. This role is ideal for an engineer who enjoys working “in the trenches,” solving cross-disciplinary challenges, and taking responsibility for real-world product delivery, while also having a view of the ‘bigger picture’ and broader strategic objectives of our business. You will work within a small and nimble team and will play a key role in developing and delivering environmental monitoring systems used worldwide. This role takes technical ownership of connected products as they are developed, released, and improved over time. You will have access to the resources, technologies and additional growth opportunities across the broader portfolio within the AEM family of businesses.

Requirements

Experience developing embedded hardware products from concept through production.
Strong understanding of embedded firmware and how it interacts with hardware and software.
Ability to work across electrical, mechanical, and software/firmware domains at a system level.
Able to review hardware designs with engineering teams and understand key design trade-offs.
Experience working with internal engineering teams and external development partners.
Practical problem-solver who communicates clearly and works well with distributed teams.

Nice To Haves

Experience with connected or radio-enabled devices (cellular, Wi-Fi, or similar).
Familiarity with security concepts for embedded systems such as secure boot, encryption, authentication, and OTA updates.
Experience supporting CE, RED, or other regulatory certification processes.
Experience working with external development partners or contract manufacturers.
Familiarity with cloud-connected or IoT systems.

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end technical delivery of connected environmental monitoring products—from early concept and architecture through validation, certification, and volume production.
Translate product and customer requirements into clear, executable engineering plans, and drive those plans through development with internal teams and external partners.
Act as the system-level engineer, ensuring embedded hardware, firmware, mechanical design, cloud connectivity, and manufacturing constraints come together in a robust, scalable product.
Design, build, test, and debug early prototypes and pre-production units, solving real-world technical issues hands-on and iterating designs based on test results.
Contribute directly to embedded firmware development where needed, including design review, implementation, debugging, and performance or reliability improvements.
Critically review electrical schematics, PCB layouts, and mechanical designs, identifying risks, trade-offs, and improvement opportunities from a system perspective.
Lead and participate in cross-disciplinary technical design reviews, guiding decisions and resolving complex issues across hardware, firmware, and mechanical domains.
Define and review secure device architectures, including authentication, encrypted communications, secure boot, and firmware update mechanisms.
Drive compliance with European radio and cybersecurity regulations (e.g., RED, NIS2), partnering with regulatory specialists to ensure designs are production-ready and certifiable.
Lead technical activities required for product certification and regulatory approvals, coordinating testing, documentation, and interactions with external labs and certification bodies.
Work closely with contract manufacturers and development partners to industrialize products, troubleshoot production issues, and improve manufacturability and quality.
Support and continuously improve products in production and in the field, responding to real customer issues and feeding lessons learned into future designs.