Senior Electrical Engineer

Thermon•Austin, TX

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

We're looking for a Senior Electrical Engineer with deep power electronics expertise and full-stack PCB design capability to join our R&D Controls and Accessories team. Our products, field-deployed industrial controllers operating -40°C to +85°C in explosive atmospheres, represent the state of the art in harsh-environment power and control. Our roadmap pushes into territory where the easy reference designs don't exist: novel custom magnetics, and the certification burden that comes with deploying power switching and conversion hardware into hazardous locations. This is an ownership role. You'll drive the full hardware arc from architecture through schematic, layout, bring-up, DVT, and manufacturing handoff on a small team where every engineer's work ships to real products in the field.

Requirements

8–12 years of hands-on experience designing and delivering production power electronics hardware - not software-defined power management, but real magnetics design, converter topology selection, and switching supply debug.
Deep proficiency in switching power supply design : CCM/DCM boundary conditions, right-half-plane zero management, compensation network design, mode control (voltage mode, current mode, hysteretic).
Magnetic design experience : Core material selection (ferrite, powdered iron, amorphous), winding design, loss analysis, leakage and magnetizing inductance characterization, and transformer measurement on the bench (impedance analyzer or equivalent).
Proficiency in Altium Designer for full schematic capture and PCB layout - with production tape-out experience.
Working knowledge of power simulation tools: SPICE variants (LTspice, SIMetrix, PSIM, or equivalent) for converter waveform validation and stability analysis.
Solid understanding of EMC design for switching converters: common-mode vs. differential-mode noise, filter design, layout containment of switching loops, chassis and signal ground separation.
Experience designing for industrial operating conditions : -40 to +85°C ambient, high-voltage isolation (creepage/clearance to IEC 60664), extended component ratings, and long-term field reliability.
Hands-on debug capability: oscilloscope (differential probe, current probe), bench load, power analyzer, impedance analyzer - and the discipline to capture complete data, not just "it works."
Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or closely related field.
AI Tool Fluency with Engineering Judgment: Actively uses best available tools to accelerate magnetics first-pass, simulation cross-check, datasheet mining, and documentation.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with current transformer (CT) design for sensing or power extraction applications, including impedance matching and saturation management.
Knowledge of resonant magnetic coupling architectures and the design tradeoffs they involve.
Experience with hazardous location (HazLoc) certification - IEC 60079, ATEX, CSA Class I Division 1/2 - specifically the constraints it places on power conversion design (energy storage limits, ignition risk analysis).
Familiarity with functional safety (IEC 61508, SIL 2) and what SIL 2 capable power architecture looks like in practice.
Exposure to ultra-low-power system budgeting : starting from a constrained power budget and working backward to system duty cycle and communications architecture.
Experience with FMEA, design risk assessment, or reliability prediction for power electronics.
Power-focused graduate work is a genuine plus here.

Responsibilities

Own the design of isolated power conversion systems - flyback, SEPIC, forward, resonant topologies - for microcontroller-based industrial control hardware. Define the architecture from requirements, not from a reference design.
Design custom magnetics - transformers, coupled inductors, current transformers - including core selection, winding strategy, leakage inductance management, and thermal design. Validate in simulation and on the bench.
Lead the investigation and productization of unconventional power source topologies - including coupler design, impedance matching, control strategy, and the full HazLoc certification path for the resulting hardware.
Design isolated signal conditioning, precision current and voltage sensing, ground fault monitoring, analog front-ends for RTD/thermocouple/4-20mA inputs, and relay output stages that meet industrial operating requirements.
Own complete PCB designs in Altium Designer - schematic capture through layout - with proper attention to high-voltage creepage/clearance, switching node containment, thermal dissipation, EMC, and IPC workmanship standards.
Own board bring-up from first power-on through full functional verification. Debug switching converter instability, magnetics saturation, ground loops, EMC failures, and hardware-firmware interface issues - with the right instrument and a systematic approach.
Collaborate with the certifications team through CSA, UL, ATEX, and EMC testing. Understand what drives failures, propose design corrections, and see them through to approval.
Deliver complete design packages - schematics, BOMs, layout, Gerbers, test specs, assembly notes - that a contract manufacturer can build from without coming back with questions.
Define hardware/software interfaces with embedded engineers: power sequencing, ADC calibration, PWM control interfaces, interrupt schemes. Enough firmware awareness to make integration clean.
Raise the capability of the team. Your depth in power electronics should be contagious.