Senior Electrical Engineer

IPG Photonics•Marlborough, MA

12d

About The Position

IPG Photonics is seeking a Senior Electrical Engineer to provide sustaining engineering leadership for the LightWELD product family. The role is dedicated to supporting LightWELD products throughout their production and service lifecycles, ensuring their continued quality, reliability, safety, manufacturability, and regulatory compliance. The engineer investigates product, manufacturing, and field issues; leads root-cause and corrective-action activities; implements electrical design improvements; and addresses component obsolescence and supply-chain challenges. The position requires deep electrical engineering expertise, hands-on troubleshooting skills, and leadership of cross-functional technical efforts involving engineering, manufacturing, quality, service, supply chain, suppliers, and product management. The role serves as the senior electrical engineering owner for released LightWELD products, accessories, subsystems, and supporting production test equipment. It supports product production, service, field support, and improvement activities; develops and validates circuit and subsystem changes; manages engineering changes and product documentation; and contributes to reliability, quality, cost, safety, and compliance efforts. The position regularly involves work in engineering laboratories, manufacturing areas, and product test environments, including hands-on interaction with LightWELD products, production hardware, test equipment, and returned units. Occasional travel may be required to suppliers, manufacturing partners, customer locations, or field-service sites.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a closely related engineering discipline.
10 or more years of professional electrical engineering experience, including substantial experience in sustaining engineering or released-product support.
Demonstrated experience supporting complex industrial, commercial, or capital-equipment electronic products in a production environment.
Strong knowledge of analog and digital circuit design, power electronics, control systems, sensors, signal conditioning, communications, and electrical interfaces.
Proven ability to troubleshoot complex electrical and electromechanical systems using oscilloscopes, multimeters, power analyzers, logic analyzers, electronic loads, and related laboratory equipment.
Experience reading, creating, and reviewing electrical schematics, wiring diagrams, bills of material, PCB documentation, specifications, and test procedures.
Demonstrated experience leading root-cause investigations and implementing effective corrective and preventive actions.
Experience with component qualification, alternate-part selection, design changes, and component obsolescence management.
Working knowledge of design verification, validation, reliability testing, and production test methods.
Experience working within formal engineering change-control and product lifecycle management processes.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical issues clearly to engineering, manufacturing, quality, service, suppliers, and management.
Ability to manage multiple technical priorities and make sound, timely decisions in a fast-paced production environment.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a related discipline.
Experience with handheld laser welding systems, industrial laser products, welding equipment, machine tools, or other high-power industrial electronic products.
Experience supporting portable or handheld industrial tools.
Familiarity with laser-system safety controls, redundant interlocks, emergency-stop circuits, and safety-critical design practices.
Experience with embedded systems, microcontrollers, firmware interfaces, industrial communications, and system-level software diagnostics.
Experience with high-voltage or high-current systems, switch-mode power supplies, DC bus architectures, motor drives, thermal controls, and cooling systems.
Working knowledge of electromagnetic compatibility design, testing, and troubleshooting.
Experience with PCB design and analysis tools, circuit simulation tools, product lifecycle management systems, and enterprise resource planning systems.
Familiarity with Design for Manufacturing, Design for Test, Design for Service, FMEA, 8D, fault-tree analysis, and statistical problem-solving techniques.
Experience working with domestic and international suppliers or contract manufacturers.
Strong technical judgment and ownership of LightWELD product issues.
A hands-on, data-driven approach to troubleshooting and decision-making.
Ability to distinguish symptoms from underlying root causes.
Effective leadership of cross-functional technical investigations.
Attention to detail in safety-critical designs and technical documentation.
Ability to balance technical rigor with product quality, cost, schedule, and business needs.
Ability to work independently while communicating status, risk, and recommendations clearly.
Strong commitment to product quality, customer satisfaction, and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

Serve as the senior electrical engineering owner for released LightWELD products, accessories, subsystems, and supporting production test equipment.
Provide sustaining engineering support throughout the LightWELD product lifecycle, including production, service, field support, and product improvement.
Investigate and resolve complex electrical, electronic, and electromechanical issues identified in manufacturing, testing, service, or customer use.
Perform root-cause analysis of field returns, production failures, intermittent faults, component failures, and system-level performance issues.
Develop and implement corrective and preventive actions using structured problem-solving methods.
Design, analyze, modify, and validate analog, digital, power, control, communication, and embedded electronic circuits used within LightWELD products.
Support electrical subsystems including power conversion, controls, sensors, safety interlocks, cooling-system electronics, communications, user-interface hardware, and related electromechanical interfaces.
Evaluate and approve component substitutions arising from obsolescence, supply constraints, quality concerns, cost-reduction initiatives, or supplier changes.
Lead electrical component qualification and alternate-part validation activities.
Manage electrical product changes through formal engineering change-control processes.
Create and maintain engineering documentation, including requirements, schematics, wiring diagrams, bills of material, specifications, risk assessments, test plans, test procedures, and validation reports.
Lead reliability, manufacturability, serviceability, quality, and cost-improvement initiatives without compromising product performance or safety.
Develop and improve test methods, diagnostic procedures, fixtures, and tools for engineering, manufacturing, quality, and field-service teams.
Analyze manufacturing, service, warranty, and field-return data to identify failure trends and prioritize product improvements.
Provide hands-on manufacturing support, including troubleshooting, nonconformance resolution, deviation reviews, rework instructions, and production process improvements.
Collaborate with suppliers and contract manufacturers to resolve component, assembly, workmanship, and quality issues.
Conduct electrical design reviews and provide technical guidance to engineers, technicians, and cross-functional project teams.
Ensure released documentation remains accurate and consistent with the current LightWELD product configuration.
Support product safety, electromagnetic compatibility, environmental, and applicable regulatory compliance activities.
Participate in design failure mode and effects analyses, product risk assessments, fault-tree analyses, and safety reviews.
Provide technical support for customer escalations and assist service teams in diagnosing complex LightWELD system issues.
Mentor less-experienced engineers and technicians and promote disciplined engineering, documentation, and problem-solving practices.