Staff Power Electronics Engineer

CesiumAstro•Austin, TX

About The Position

CesiumAstro is seeking a Staff Power Electronics Engineer for its spacecraft payload development team. The engineer will contribute throughout the development lifecycle of power electronics hardware for satellites and space power systems payloads, from defining power-system architectures and conducting trade studies through circuit design, simulation, PCB layout, verification and integration testing, production transition, and manufacturing support. The position also leads project execution for a small team, mentors engineers, and supports innovation in power electronics. Applicants must meet U.S. Government Space Technology Export Regulations eligibility requirements: be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, conditional resident, asylee or refugee (a protected individual under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)), or be eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Requirements

Bachelor of Science degree or higher in Electrical Engineering or a related field from an accredited university.
At least 9 years of experience designing analog and power electronics.
Experience developing electrical power-system architectures and requirements; conducting SWAP-C trade studies; selecting power-converter topologies; and defining power-management and control blocks.
Experience modeling and controlling DC-DC converters and designing power stages for isolated and non-isolated converters, including linear regulators, Buck, Boost, Buck-boost, Flyback, Forward, Half-bridge, Full bridge, and Resonant converters.
Experience designing custom signal and power magnetics and low-noise, EMC power filters.
Experience developing design verification, compliance, integration, qualification, and production acceptance plans.
Experience performing worst-case circuit, stress, FMEA, and reliability analyses for power supplies.
Extensive hands-on experience testing and troubleshooting electronics and power converters with laboratory instruments such as oscilloscopes, impedance analyzers, spectrum analyzers, electronic loads, and signal generators.
Experience with schematic capture and PCB layout tools such as Altium, OrCAD, Allegro, or Xpedition.
Experience with analysis and simulation tools such as SPICE, LTSPICE, SIMetrix/SIMPLIS, PLECS, Simulink, MATLAB, MathCAD, ANSYS Q3D and SiWave, or HyperLynx.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Nice To Haves

Master of Science or PhD in Electrical Engineering with a research focus in power electronics.
Experience designing high-reliability analog and power electronics for automotive, space, or defense applications.
Knowledge of space radiation environments and radiation effects in electronics.
Experience with GaN or SiC wide-bandgap power semiconductor devices.
Experience running board-level power-integrity simulations using tools such as Ansys SiWave or HyperLynx.
Experience with soft-switching and resonant converter topologies, such as LLC, CLLC, series resonant, phase-shifted full bridge, and dual active bridge.
Experience designing power stages for inverters and motor drives.
Knowledge of modeling and control of inverters and motor drives.
Experience with advanced DC-DC converter control schemes, such as voltage mode with feedforward, constant on-time, V2 constant on-time, phase-shift modulation, and average current mode control.
Experience with isolation and grounding, FMEA and fault-tolerant design, and thermal management of power electronics.
Programming skills for hardware testing and data processing, such as Python or MATLAB.
Knowledge of MPPT for solar power, battery sizing and battery management systems, electric-propulsion power conversion, power conditioning, and spacecraft power-management and power-distribution units.
Experience designing and testing power-electronics units to standards for automotive, industrial, space, or military markets, such as FCC, CISPR, UL safety, ECSS, NASA, or MIL standards.

Responsibilities

Define electrical power-system architecture and derive power-subsystem requirements.
Design DC-DC power converters, motor drives, inverters, and power management and control circuits from concept through production release.
Design analog and power-electronics circuits ranging from individual DC-DC converters to multi-output power-supply modules.
Model and analyze designs, including worst-case circuit, stress, small-signal, FMEA, reliability, and power-integrity analyses.
Develop design verification test plans, requirement compliance matrices, system integration and qualification test plans, and production acceptance test plans.
Lead board bring-up and design verification testing of power-electronics circuits and modules.
Lead system integration and qualification campaigns, and release analog and power-electronics designs into production.
Mentor junior engineers and foster knowledge sharing.
Lead a small team of power-electronics engineers to drive project execution.
Research and monitor industry trends to drive innovation and generate intellectual property.