Staff Power Electronics Engineer

CesiumAstro•El Segundo, CA

22h•$165,000 - $199,000

About The Position

CesiumAstro is seeking a Staff Power Electronics Engineer for its spacecraft payload development team. The role contributes across the full development lifecycle of power electronics hardware for satellites and space power systems payloads, including defining power system architectures and trade studies, detailed circuit design and simulation, PCB layout, verification and integration testing, production transition, and manufacturing support. The position also leads a small team, mentors engineers, and supports innovation in power electronics.

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 with electrical power systems and subsystems, including power architecture and requirements, SWAP-C trade studies, converter topology selection, and defining power management and control blocks.
Experience modeling and controlling DC-DC converters and designing power stages for isolated and non-isolated converter topologies, 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, requirements compliance, integration, qualification, and production acceptance test 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, including LLC, CLLC, series resonant, phase-shifted full bridge, and dual active bridge.
Experience designing power stages for inverters and motor drives.
Knowledge of inverter and motor-drive modeling and control.
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, failure mode effects analysis, fault-tolerant design, and thermal management of power electronics.
Programming skills for hardware testing and data processing, such as Python or MATLAB.
Knowledge of maximum power point tracking for solar power, battery sizing and management systems, electric propulsion power conversion, and spacecraft power conditioning, management, and distribution units.
Experience designing and testing power electronics units to automotive, industrial, space, or military standards and requirements, 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.
Perform detailed design of analog and power electronics circuits, from single DC-DC converters to multi-output power supply modules.
Model and analyze analog and power electronics designs, including worst-case circuit analysis, stress analysis, small-signal modeling, failure modes and effects analysis, reliability analysis, and power integrity analysis.
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, qualification campaigns, and release of analog and power electronics designs into production.
Mentor younger engineers and foster knowledge sharing.
Lead a small team of power electronics engineers to drive project execution.
Research and monitor power electronics industry trends to drive innovation and generate intellectual property.