Hardware Development Electrical Engineer

About Northwood:

Northwood is on a mission to transform connectivity between earth and space and bring the benefits of space to the masses through innovations in space communications technologies. If you like building quickly and seeing your work deployed in locations around the globe with real impact, we want you at Northwood.

Role:

Northwood is looking for a hardware development engineer with a wide range of practical experience to join our product team and help us design and test new and existing communications technologies. This role is vital to the pace of hardware development within our organization and the reliability of our products both inside our facilities and out in the field at remote sites around the world. Engineers in this role will need to have an electrical systems-level understanding of the basics of power, communications, and RF and be willing to learn about and contribute to our advanced hardware products. They would be helping our team develop test setups for trying out new hardware concepts and also for verifying and stressing our existing systems in the lab and on the production line. They would additionally take design responsibility for ensuring that our new products are built for testability and manufacturability. This is a critical role at Northwood that creates and communicates actionable insights into hardware performance that we need to inform our ever-evolving and improving antenna systems.

Responsibilities:

• Design, create, and automate complex test setups to qualify new hardware and increase test coverage on existing hardware in our production cells

• Work collaboratively with other hardware engineers to create new antenna systems that are buildable, testable, and streamlined for production

• Spin custom PCBAs and create simple mechanical fixtures as necessary to accommodate a wide range of hardware needs for development

• Work on development hardware in a fast-paced environment to create proof-of-concept setups for new products and technologies

• Find ways to stress our hardware to its extremes to inform reliability and operational limits - Write test scripts in Python and create reusable lightweight drivers and frameworks for streamlining test creation

• Collaborate with the hardware and software teams to develop tools and processes that speed up the velocity of hardware development at Northwood

• Occasionally travel to manufacturing locations and remote antenna sites to perform testing on production lines and in the field with our team

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or related field

• Proven track record of practical PCBA and/or system development on tight timelines from previous work experiences

• Experience with electronics test engineering or hardware development and design

• Programming experience in Python or a similar scripting language

• Experience with debugging electronics hardware

• Familiarity with electrical test equipment

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with creating basic mechanical fixtures and setups utilizing tools like MCAD programs, 3D printers, and turnkey mechanical vendors

Additional Information:

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Northwood is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Northwood is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.