What are the responsibilities and job description for the Power Electronics Engineer position at Atomos Systems?
We're looking for a hands-on HV Power Electronics Engineer to own drive architecture and PCB design for a novel actuator platform targeting humanoid robotics. This is not a conventional motor-drive role: you will define the power electronics architecture for an actuator whose electrical behavior, sensing constraints, packaging limits, and efficiency targets do not map cleanly to an existing inverter template.
What You'll Do
- Drive Architecture: Design the HV analog front-end and multi-phase switching stage; define gate drive topology, protection, edge-rate control, operating envelope, and efficiency strategy from first principles.
- PCB Design: Own schematic, layout, bring-up, and debug through multiple board revisions — open-loop drive → integrated sense and MCU → production-intent.
- Sense Channel: Design position readback that coexists with HV switching on the same substrate; build the measurement chain and extraction strategy needed to recover usable signals in a hostile electrical environment.
- EMI Mitigation: Architect isolated rails, return paths, slew-rate control, and switching transitions; own pre-compliance EMI scanning and the design changes required to pass it.
- Packaging & Interconnect: Define routing from driver board to actuator across a multi-layer assembly — evaluate flex/rigid-flex vs. wire harness against creepage, clearance, EMI coupling, mass/volume, and assembly constraints.
Qualifications
- Education: BS, MS, or PhD in Electrical Engineering or equivalent.
- Experience: 3 years in analog/power electronics with HV experience (>100V), including end-to-end ownership of boards from schematic through bring-up and debug.
- Core technical skills:
- Gate drive design for HV switching; SPICE simulation; transient, fault, and protection design
- Mixed-signal PCB layout — HV/LV isolation, current loops, return path control, noise partitioning, and compact packaging
- EMI/EMC in mixed-signal environments: pre-compliance scanning, LISN use, isolation strategy, and board-level mitigation
- Comfort designing for loads and sensing schemes that do not come with a standard reference architecture
- What we value:
- First-principles fluency — form a correct mental model of a new electromechanical system and turn it into a robust, efficient electronics architecture
- Good engineering judgment under hard size, weight, thermal, and efficiency constraints
- A builder mindset: ship hardware, find failures fast, iterate