Senior Engineer - Electrical

What You'll Do

• Join forces with physicists and engineers across electrical, mechanical, and optical domains to bring system and schematic requirements to life through innovative electronic designs tailored for cutting-edge quantum instruments.
• Take charge of the entire PCB process for intricate boards, encompassing high-speed digital, precision analog, mixed-signal, power, and RF sectors.
• Establish, uphold, and advocate for PCB layout standards and design rules, including stack-ups, trace/space specifications, impedance profiles, creepage/clearance measures, and via strategies.
• Drive component selection, placement, and routing with a focus on optimizing signal integrity, power integrity, thermal efficiency, manufacturability, and ease of service.
• Collaborate closely with electrical engineers to execute controlled-impedance routing techniques (including microstrip, stripline, and differential pairs) while effectively managing timing-critical nets.
• Place a strong emphasis on manufacturability and testability throughout the design process.
• Lead the complete PCBA design journey from initial concept through to production.
• Contribute to manufacturing initiatives by addressing support issues, defining tests, and ensuring adherence to DFM guidelines in PCB designs.
• Continuously follow and enhance design directives and procedures.
• Have a solid understanding of DFM/DFA constraints and hands-on experience working directly with PCB fabricators and assemblers.
• Design and develop Point-of-Load (POL) power supply circuits to effectively manage complex board-level power distribution, ensuring high efficiency while meeting stringent power sequencing requirements.
• Engage with internal teams to troubleshoot DFM/DFA challenges, enhance yield, and improve fabrication processes.
• Ensure accurate and up-to-date design data and documentation in our cloud-based PLM system, including revisions and engineering change orders (ECOs).

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field, accompanied by a minimum of six years of professional experience; alternatively, a Master's degree with at least three years of professional experience; or equivalent experience.
• At least three years of professional experience in electrical design, specifically in the development of complex, mixed-signal PCBA designs utilizing advanced ECAD tools, with a preference for proficiency in Altium Designer.
• Ability to work comfortably in a laboratory setting.
• To comply with the US export control laws, Vector Atomic employees must be U.S. citizens (born or naturalized), lawful U.S. permanent residents (green card holders), and certain categories of refugees, and asylees.
• Demonstrated expertise in high-density layouts, encompassing HDI, fine-pitch BGAs, high-speed differential pairs, and mixed-signal designs.
• Ability to define and implement controlled impedance structures (microstrip, stripline, and differential pairs), as well as strategies for signal integrity, power distribution, grounding, and EMI/EMC-aware layout techniques.
• Proficient in designing PCBAs that feature modern FPGAs, MCUs, mixed-signal, and precision analog circuits, ideally with Altium Designer.
• Experience in designing POL power circuits with stringent ripple and EMI specifications.
• Skilled in utilizing a PLM system to oversee PCBA designs, including the creation of Engineering Change Orders (ECOs).
• Hands-on experience with hardware debugging and familiarity with laboratory test equipment such as oscilloscopes, digital voltmeters, and spectrum analyzers.
• Excellent written and verbal communication abilities.

Nice-to-have expertise

• Proven hands-on experience in designing PCBs using Altium Designer, including expertise in schematic capture, layout, library management, and fabrication file generation.
• Familiarity with creating design rules and implementing constraint-driven layouts in Altium is essential.
• Demonstrated ability to integrate PCB designs with PLM/ERP systems, alongside effective management of component libraries and their lifecycle statuses.
• A background in defining, simulating, and verifying ASIC designs would be a valuable addition.
• Previous experience in low-power design is highly regarded.
• Skilled in creating designs that comply with standards such as RoHS/CE, EMI/EMC, and UL requirements.