Power Electronics Engineer
Apply NowCompany: Kristen J. Bates & Associates LLC
Location: Lawrence, KS 66044
Description:
Job Description
DUTIES:
1) Responsible to provide design leadership and technical expertise throughout the full
life
cycle development of high powered PV inverters and associated projects.
2) Overall power stage conception, specification, analysis, implementation, and
validation.
- Power semiconductor selection, simulation, and implementation.
- System thermal management.
- Gate drive circuitry and protection.
- Design bias power supplies such as flyback converters.
- Power control sensing including DC link and current feedback design.
- EMI filter design.
- Isolation system design for sensing and communications.
- Magnetics specification, design, and implementation.
- Safety circuits such as ground fault detection, insulation monitoring, and Arc
detection.
3) Design for cost targets.
4) Validation testing and system certification: HALT, Thermal testing, EMI/EMC testing,
and UL Listing.
5) Design for test and manufacturability.
6) Working with High Voltage/High Power circuits using best practices for safety.
7) Design for high reliability, long life and MTBF.
8) Printed circuit board designs for high reliability, cost sensitive products.
9) Design for EMI/EMC in harsh environment.
10) Participate in hardware FMEA analysis.
11) Provide outstanding documentation of hardware designs.
Additional design challenges may include:
- Wireless and wired communications system design.
- DSP controller system design.
- High reliability PCB implementation.
- Control algorithm development in conjunction with software team.
12) Additional duties may be assigned, as business circumstances require.
REQUIREMENTS:
Education:
BSEE, BSSE, BSCE, BSCS with 4 years experience OR
MS with 2 years experience OR
Ph.D with 1 years experience
Engineering Skills:
1. Expert power electronics design background:
a. Power semiconductor implementation, design for efficiency, and protection.
b. Must understand the fundamentals of PWM controlled power electronics.
Implementation experience with buck, boost, flyback, and inverter power
sections is expected.
c. Experience with high efficiency power stages, soft switching topologies.
2. CPU based systems, with significant digital circuitry such as communications,
memory, and I/O.
3. Deep knowledge of circuit analysis and simulation to ensure design margin and
reliability.
4. Design background in harsh, electrically noisy environments.
5. Knowledge of Electrical safety standards, EMI/EMC and Environmental compliance.
6. Experience in design for long life and high MTBF.
7. Significant electronic circuit design, including Processor based systems,
Communications interfaces, OpAmps, Filters, Isolation, Circuit protection, voltage
regulation and conversion.
8. Knowledge of mechanical/thermal/packaging design for industrial electronics.
9. Extensive experience in design of electronics based systems, including schematics,
circuit simulation, PCB layout, testing, and troubleshooting skills.
10. Expertise in communications hardware layers of Wireless Ethernet, Wired Ethernet,
CAN, SPI, and RS-485.
11. Significant experience with circuit board design, including: Altium (or equivalent)
design software, IPC rules and guidelines, PCB design for test, and PCB design for
manufacturing.
12. Ability to understand complex designs and failure modes with software/hardware
interactions.
13. Direct experience with safe operation and testing of high power (Up to 1MW) and
high voltage (Up to 600VAC, Up to 1500VDC) equipment.
14. Background in embedded C programming is a plus.
15. Experience in PV system design is a big plus.
Business/Personal Skills:
1. Rapid product development, while maintaining high quality results.
2. Outstanding work ethic and positive attitude required.
3. Strong sense of schedule driven design, meeting cost targets, NRE decisions,
feature/effort trade efforts, and design for manufacturing.
4. A high level of initiative and a proactive nature, good communication skills and
strong organizational and time management skills.
5. Ability to support creation of schedules and work estimations for complex power
electronics projects.
6. Fluency in written and spoken English is essential.
7. Ability to work as a leader or individual contributor, depending upon assignment.
8. Willingness to travel up to 10% of the time.
DUTIES:
1) Responsible to provide design leadership and technical expertise throughout the full
life
cycle development of high powered PV inverters and associated projects.
2) Overall power stage conception, specification, analysis, implementation, and
validation.
- Power semiconductor selection, simulation, and implementation.
- System thermal management.
- Gate drive circuitry and protection.
- Design bias power supplies such as flyback converters.
- Power control sensing including DC link and current feedback design.
- EMI filter design.
- Isolation system design for sensing and communications.
- Magnetics specification, design, and implementation.
- Safety circuits such as ground fault detection, insulation monitoring, and Arc
detection.
3) Design for cost targets.
4) Validation testing and system certification: HALT, Thermal testing, EMI/EMC testing,
and UL Listing.
5) Design for test and manufacturability.
6) Working with High Voltage/High Power circuits using best practices for safety.
7) Design for high reliability, long life and MTBF.
8) Printed circuit board designs for high reliability, cost sensitive products.
9) Design for EMI/EMC in harsh environment.
10) Participate in hardware FMEA analysis.
11) Provide outstanding documentation of hardware designs.
Additional design challenges may include:
- Wireless and wired communications system design.
- DSP controller system design.
- High reliability PCB implementation.
- Control algorithm development in conjunction with software team.
12) Additional duties may be assigned, as business circumstances require.
REQUIREMENTS:
Education:
BSEE, BSSE, BSCE, BSCS with 4 years experience OR
MS with 2 years experience OR
Ph.D with 1 years experience
Engineering Skills:
1. Expert power electronics design background:
a. Power semiconductor implementation, design for efficiency, and protection.
b. Must understand the fundamentals of PWM controlled power electronics.
Implementation experience with buck, boost, flyback, and inverter power
sections is expected.
c. Experience with high efficiency power stages, soft switching topologies.
2. CPU based systems, with significant digital circuitry such as communications,
memory, and I/O.
3. Deep knowledge of circuit analysis and simulation to ensure design margin and
reliability.
4. Design background in harsh, electrically noisy environments.
5. Knowledge of Electrical safety standards, EMI/EMC and Environmental compliance.
6. Experience in design for long life and high MTBF.
7. Significant electronic circuit design, including Processor based systems,
Communications interfaces, OpAmps, Filters, Isolation, Circuit protection, voltage
regulation and conversion.
8. Knowledge of mechanical/thermal/packaging design for industrial electronics.
9. Extensive experience in design of electronics based systems, including schematics,
circuit simulation, PCB layout, testing, and troubleshooting skills.
10. Expertise in communications hardware layers of Wireless Ethernet, Wired Ethernet,
CAN, SPI, and RS-485.
11. Significant experience with circuit board design, including: Altium (or equivalent)
design software, IPC rules and guidelines, PCB design for test, and PCB design for
manufacturing.
12. Ability to understand complex designs and failure modes with software/hardware
interactions.
13. Direct experience with safe operation and testing of high power (Up to 1MW) and
high voltage (Up to 600VAC, Up to 1500VDC) equipment.
14. Background in embedded C programming is a plus.
15. Experience in PV system design is a big plus.
Business/Personal Skills:
1. Rapid product development, while maintaining high quality results.
2. Outstanding work ethic and positive attitude required.
3. Strong sense of schedule driven design, meeting cost targets, NRE decisions,
feature/effort trade efforts, and design for manufacturing.
4. A high level of initiative and a proactive nature, good communication skills and
strong organizational and time management skills.
5. Ability to support creation of schedules and work estimations for complex power
electronics projects.
6. Fluency in written and spoken English is essential.
7. Ability to work as a leader or individual contributor, depending upon assignment.
8. Willingness to travel up to 10% of the time.