Senior Electrical Engineer

About The Company

The open ocean is Earth’s largest and most power-dense renewable energy resource. Panthalassa is harnessing that resource to generate the cheapest energy on the planet. Our mission is to provide abundant and affordable clean energy for everyone.

About The Job

Our core technology is the node, a device that produces energy in the ocean’s harshest conditions for years at a time without human maintenance or intervention. As Senior Electrical Engineer, you will work on an interdisciplinary team and be responsible for designing custom electronic hardware, taking system level concepts and requirements and turning those into fully-functional circuit cards that fulfill the system needs.

Candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis. If you are an excellent engineer, regardless of your background, we want you to apply. Our staff have worked at organizations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke, Boeing, Virgin Orbit, Virgin Galactic, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, New Relic, Raytheon, Disney Imagineering, Bridgewater Associates, and the US Army and Air Force, as well as research universities, startups, and small companies across a range of industries. We are organized as a public benefit corporation and are backed by leading venture capital firms, private investors, philanthropic investors, and endowments.

We strive to be the best engineering team on the planet and we compensate our engineers accordingly.

Responsibilities

• Be responsible for the design of high-reliability electronics throughout their lifecycle by working with a team of engineers. Specific tasks may include design of: multi-kilowatt load engagement systems; high energy storage battery selection; battery management systems including high precision state-of-charge monitoring and active current limiting; supercapacitor bank design; power electronics system architecture including switch-mode power electronics circuit cards.
• Candidates should be intimately familiar with requirements capture & refinement, block diagramming, schematic and PCB design, electronics hardware packaging, component selection, circuit analysis, circuit simulation, procurement, prototyping, documentation, manufacturing, unit testing, and deployment.
• Test and verify the designed hardware in a lab environment, building/integrating multiple systems where the designs are utilized, and transferring test requirements to test engineering for large-scale manufacturing.
• Create unit and integration test processes to ensure design validity and reliability, and exercise prototypes past their thermal, mechanical, and electrical limits to understand failure modes.
• Collaborate effectively across interdisciplinary engineering teams.
• Prepare supporting safety and engineering documentation for your designs and be responsible for the training and safety of any technicians who operate or test it.
  
  

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in electrical engineering
• 8 years relevant working experience minimum
• Extensive design experience including many of the following:
• Energy storage systems
• From-scratch DC-DC converters
• From-scratch digital and mixed-signal electronics design, including ADC and DAC use
• Working knowledge of filtering, EMI/EMC compliance, grounding and shielding, thermal management, etc.
  
  

A background in both analog and digital design Excellent fundamental and comprehensive knowledge of electrical engineering concepts related to circuit design, calibration, and testing of mixed signal systems Basic understanding of switch mode power electronics and electrothermal design concepts Knowledge of craftsmanship skills involved in electronics construction, such as PCB creation, circuit card assembly, soldering, etc. Understanding of the utility and applicability of hardware development processes Comprehensive understanding of test equipment like oscilloscopes, signal generators, differential probes, multimeters, bench supplies, electronic loads, etc.

Desired Qualifications

• Advanced degree or 12 years relevant work experience
• Experience with multi-kilowatt converter design
• Familiarity with 3 phase AC voltage systems
• Knowledge and experience with battery charging, BMS, state of charge monitoring, etc.
• Embedded design experience is not required, exposure to it at a minimum is preferred.
• Exposure to and/or comfort with high voltages and currents: design work will include exposure to voltages in excess of 1kV and currents over 400A.
• Experience with high-reliability systems engineering, component derating, Monte-Carlo analysis, reliability analysis, and fault-tolerant systems
• Experience with interdisciplinary teams, including:
• Comfort working with ambiguity and uncertainty
• Ability to proactively evolve work to meet the changing needs of company
• Willingness to question and refine prior requirements
• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills
• Open-mindedness about possible solutions, conventional or unconventional
• Ability to identify problems, willingness to call them out constructively, and dedication to resolving them
  
  

A history of successful mentorships, training other engineers, teaching of seminars, or authoring technically focused web pages or whitepapers

The above qualifications are desired, not required. We encourage you to apply if you are a strong candidate with only some of the desired skills and experience listed.

Compensation And Benefits

If hired for this full-time role, you will receive:

• Cash compensation of $165,000 - $250,000
• Equity in the company. We’re all owners and if we’re successful, this equity should be far and away the most valuable component of your compensation.
• A benefits package that helps you take care of yourself and your family, including:
• Flexible paid time off
• Health insurance (the company pays 100% of gold level PPO plan for full time employees, their partners, and dependents)
• Dental insurance (the company pays 100% for full time employees and 100% for their partners and dependents)
• Vision insurance (the company pays 100% for full time employees, their partners, and dependents)
• Disability insurance (the company pays 100% for a policy to provide long term financial support if you become disabled)
• Ability to contribute to tax-advantaged accounts, including 401(k), health FSA, and dependent care FSA
  
  

Relocation assistance to facilitate your move to Portland (if needed). Location

This is an on-site position. Our offices, lab, and shop are located in Portland, Oregon.