High-Speed PCB Design Engineer

Responsibilities

• Own the high-speed PCB design for spacecraft payload electronics, from concept through layout release.
• Define and maintain technical specifications for electronic subsystems and high-speed interfaces.
• Design PCBs to ECSS and/or IPC Class 3 requirements, including stack-up definition, controlled impedance routing, and manufacturability/assembly constraints.
• Perform signal integrity (SI) / power integrity (PI) analysis and simulations (e.g., impedance profiles, eye diagrams, return loss, crosstalk, PDN impedance), and translate results into layout constraints.
• Drive component selection for high-speed designs (connectors, SerDes/DDR/USB/PCIe components where relevant), including COTS/HiRel selection and qualification of EEE parts and PCB assemblies.
• Prepare and support electrical test campaigns (functional, performance, EMC, ESD), working closely with test and system teams.
• Assess reliability, failure modes, and safety of electronic components and interconnects; contribute to design reviews and risk mitigation.
• Troubleshoot and resolve design issues during development, bring-up, testing, and integration, ensuring timely delivery of the payload.
• Collaborate closely with mechanical, thermal, and systems engineering to ensure clean integration of the electronics module into the overall payload.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in Electronics Engineering (or equivalent professional experience).
• Minimum 5 years of experience in PCB design.
• Proven expertise with PCB design tools (e.g., Altium Designer) and high-speed layout practices, including:

- Controlled impedance routing (microstrip/stripline) and stack-up planning

- Differential pair routing, length matching, propagation delay management

- Parasitics modeling, via/return path optimization

- Crosstalk minimization and EMC-aware layout

• Strong skills in preparing and maintaining technical documentation (schematics, layout constraints, stack-ups, review packages, engineering reports).
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with hands-on bring-up/debug mindset.

Candidates with the following experience, in addition to that above, are strongly preferred:

Some software/firmware literacy to collaborate effectively with the software team — e.g. ability to read C and/or HDL (VHDL/Verilog), familiarity with digital communication protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, PCIe, Ethernet) at the register/transaction level, and experience jointly defining interface control documents (ICDs) and register maps. Comfort with debug tooling (JTAG, logic/protocol analyzers) and scripting (e.g. Python) for board bring-up and test automation is a plus.