Principal Electrical Design Engineer Compute

Position Title:Principal Electrical Design Engineer - Compute
Requisition ID: 1868
Position Location:Sterling VA
Position Reports To:Director of Electrical Engineering
Supervises Others:No

At Trident Systems we believe that strong engineering principles are fundamental to driving innovation and solving complex problems. We promote a culture characterized by rigorous engineering practices and a commitment to continuous improvement. This is achieved by leveraging our organizations collective expertise through collaborative development processes which include thorough design and peer reviews. We can deliver innovative high-performance solutions that meet our customers evolving requirements by integrating our specialized knowledge in aerospace electronic systems with appropriately scaled development methodologies.

We are a mission partner supporting DoD Intelligence Community and Civil space customers. We develop complex radiation effects mitigated designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.

Position Summary

The Principal Electrical Design Engineer - Compute is responsible for the architecture design analysis development and verification of advanced aerospace computing electronics. This role supports new product development and evolution of Tridents space computing product line including flight computers processor and FPGA-based electronics daughter cards interface electronics and supporting circuitry.

The Principal Electrical Design Engineer serves as a senior technical contributor throughout the hardware development lifecycle from architecture and component selection through schematic design analysis PCB layout oversight prototype bring-up qualification and production transition.

The ideal candidate has deep hands-on electrical design experience and is comfortable independently solving complex board-level problems involving high-speed digital interfaces power signal integrity radiation environments and aerospace reliability requirements.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Architect and design new aerospace computing electronics including processor-based systems FPGA-based systems daughter cards interface electronics and supporting circuitry.
• Develop electrical architectures schematics component selections interface definitions and detailed board-level designs.
• Perform or lead electrical analyses including worst-case circuit analysis (WCCA) component derating power analysis timing analysis signal integrity (SI) and power integrity (PI).
• Design and analyze high-speed digital interfaces such as DDR memory PCIe Ethernet LVDS and other high-speed serial and parallel interfaces.
• Design supporting analog and mixed-signal circuitry including power conversion sequencing monitoring reset clocking sensor and interface circuits.
• Develop radiation-effects-mitigation approaches appropriate for space electronics including component selection circuit-level mitigation fault tolerance and analysis of radiation-induced failure modes.
• Support radiation-effects analysis and testing including consideration of total ionizing dose (TID) single-event effects (SEE) and other applicable space-environment effects.
• Select electrical components based on performance reliability radiation tolerance lifecycle availability manufacturability and program requirements.
• Develop and maintain component derating parts analysis and engineering documentation supporting flight hardware designs.
• Provide technical direction and oversight for PCB layout including high-speed routing controlled impedance differential pairs memory interfaces power distribution grounding stack-up and EMI/EMC considerations.
• Perform design trade studies balancing performance SWaP-C reliability radiation tolerance schedule manufacturability and lifecycle considerations.
• Lead and participate in schematic reviews peer reviews design reviews and technical trade studies.
• Support prototype hardware bring-up board-level debug characterization integration and verification using laboratory instrumentation.
• Troubleshoot complex electrical issues involving processors FPGAs memory power systems high-speed interfaces clocks communication interfaces and board-level circuitry.
• Develop hardware verification strategies and support development of engineering test plans procedures and acceptance criteria.
• Support environmental and qualification testing including thermal thermal-vacuum vibration EMI/EMC and radiation testing as applicable.
• Investigate hardware failures and anomalies through structured root-cause analysis and recommend corrective actions.
• Work closely with FPGA embedded software mechanical integration and test GSE manufacturing quality and program personnel throughout product development.
• Support transition of new designs from engineering development into repeatable production.
• Mentor junior electrical engineers and provide technical guidance on design practices analysis troubleshooting and hardware development.
• Support customer technical discussions and design reviews as a subject matter expert for electrical hardware.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering Computer Engineering or a closely related engineering discipline.
• Minimum of 9 years of experience designing complex electrical or electronic hardware.
• Demonstrated ownership of board-level electrical designs from concept and architecture through schematic capture layout fabrication bring-up and verification.
• Strong experience with digital circuit design involving processors microcontrollers FPGAs memory or similar complex devices.
• Experience designing high-speed digital interfaces such as DDR PCIe Ethernet LVDS or comparable interfaces.
• Experience performing or interpreting signal-integrity and power-integrity analyses.
• Experience with electrical design analysis including worst-case analysis component derating tolerance analysis power analysis or similar design-verification methods.
• Experience with power architecture power sequencing DC/DC conversion point-of-load regulation and power-distribution considerations for complex digital electronics.
• Proficiency with electrical schematic capture and PCB design tools such as Altium Designer Cadence/OrCAD Siemens/Mentor or equivalent.
• Hands-on experience with hardware bring-up and troubleshooting using oscilloscopes logic analyzers DMMs power supplies protocol analyzers and other laboratory equipment.
• Ability to independently evaluate complex technical problems develop engineering solutions and communicate technical rationale through analysis and design documentation.
• Ability to lead technical design reviews and provide technical guidance to other engineers.
• Strong written and verbal technical communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing electronics for spacecraft launch vehicles missiles defense systems avionics or other high-reliability applications.
• Experience designing radiation-tolerant or radiation-effects-mitigated electronics for space environments.
• Familiarity with radiation effects including TID SEE SEU SET SEL and mitigation approaches at the component circuit and system levels.
• Experience with radiation testing radiation-effects analysis or selection and qualification of components for radiation environments.
• Experience with high-performance embedded processors FPGAs SoCs or heterogeneous computing architectures.
• Experience designing DDR3/DDR4/DDR5 memory interfaces PCIe Gigabit Ethernet high-speed serial transceivers SpaceWire CAN RS-422/485 or similar interfaces.
• Experience with SI/PI simulation tools such as HyperLynx Cadence Sigrity Ansys SIwave Keysight ADSor equivalent.
• Experience developing or reviewing PCB stack-ups impedance requirements routing constraints and layout guidelines for high-speed electronics.
• Experience with EMI/EMC design practices grounding shielding filtering and noise mitigation.
• Experience with aerospace electrical design standards parts control component derating reliability analysis and high-reliability manufacturing practices.
• Familiarity with environmental qualification standards and test methods applicable to aerospace electronics.
• Experience supporting qualification acceptance and production testing of flight electronics.
• Experience with VPX SpaceVPX VITA standards or other modular embedded computing architectures.
• Experience with schematic and PCB design for compact high-density SWaP-constrained electronics.
• Familiarity with FPGA and embedded software development sufficient to collaborate effectively across hardware firmware and software disciplines.
• Experience supporting technical proposals customer design reviews or new product development programs.

Pay Information

Full-Time Salary Range: $114000 - $211000
Please Note: Actual compensation offered will be determined based on several factors including but not limited to relevant experience skills education certifications internal equity business considerations and geographic location where applicable.

Benefits

Hired applicants may be eligible for benefits including but not limited to:

• Health benefits
  • Medical
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • Basic life with AD&D
  • Short-term disability
  • Long term disability
  • Ancillary (Voluntary life with AD&D accident critical illness hospital and pet)
  • Spending accounts (HSA FSA and DCFSA)
• Paid time off
• Holidays
• 401(k) (including company match)
• Tuition reimbursement
• Leaves (Parental maternity and military)
• Annual discretionary bonus (for eligible roles)

Trident Systems reserves the right to change or assign other duties to this position.

Trident Systems is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color religion age sex national origin disability status genetics protected veteran status sexual orientation gender identity or expression or any other characteristic protected by federal state or local laws. To request reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process please contact.

Pay Transparency: The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about discussed or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge (b) in furtherance of an investigation proceeding hearing or action including an investigation conducted by the employer or (c) consistent with the contractors legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)