Staff Electrical Engineer, Design

Firestorm•San Diego, CA

About The Position

Firestorm is seeking a Staff Electrical Engineer to develop critical electrical hardware for aircraft. The role covers power distribution and conversion, battery charging, high-performance processing, high-speed network communications, and system-level electrical integration. It is a hands-on engineering position requiring movement between detailed circuit development, system-level tradeoffs, and hardware debugging. The engineer will own hardware development from concept through testing and validation, design embedded control electronics through production and flight test, and create electrical and cable-harness documentation. The role also includes investigating PCB issues, coordinating with component vendors, supporting project milestones, and collaborating with cross-functional engineering teams.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, physics, or a related technical field.
At least 5 years of experience designing and releasing electrical hardware for products that have shipped, flown, operated in the field, or otherwise seen real-world use.
U.S. Person status (U.S. citizen or permanent resident) required due to ITAR regulations.
Strong electrical engineering fundamentals across analog, digital, mixed-signal, power, sensing, and communication circuits.
Strong proficiency with industry-standard EDA tools such as Altium Designer or Cadence Allegro/OrCAD.
Working knowledge of PCB layout tradeoffs, signal integrity, power integrity, grounding, EMI/EMC, thermal behavior, and manufacturability.
Familiarity with signal integrity and transmission-line concepts, including phase matching, crosstalk, insertion and return loss, termination, and BGA breakout strategies.
Strong root-cause analysis skills, including the ability to turn ambiguous symptoms into clear technical conclusions and practical corrective actions.
Clear communication and documentation habits, particularly when decisions affect safety, reliability, production, or fleet operations.

Nice To Haves

Experience with avionics, aerospace, drones, robotics, automotive electronics, satellites, or other high-reliability hardware.
Experience designing for weight, power consumption, thermal limits, vibration, shock, EMI/EMC, environmental exposure, or high-volume manufacturing.
Familiarity with signal integrity simulation and analysis tools.
Experience with CAN, UART, SPI, I2C, Ethernet, GNSS, radios, motor-control electronics, battery systems, or sensor interfaces.

Responsibilities

Evaluate, interpret, and resolve systems engineering problems to meet design requirements.
Own the full hardware development process, including concept development, modeling, worst-case analysis, schematic capture, simulation, prototyping, design iteration, testing, and validation.
Design embedded control electronics from concept to production, including hardware selection, schematic and PCB design, board bring-up, system-level integration, and flight test.
Design multilayer, HDI, flex, and rigid-flex PCBs for space-, weight-, and thermally constrained applications.
Generate engineering documentation, including ECOs, fabrication drawings, bills of materials, and release packages.
Conduct root-cause analysis of PCB design or layout issues and implement corrective actions to improve performance, manufacturability, or reliability.
Design and maintain cable-harness documentation using Altium Harness Designer.
Work with vendors to source and select components, ensuring quality and timely delivery.
Support project timelines, ensure technical milestones are met, and report progress to senior management.
Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, software, firmware, and test engineers to deliver functional products.