Hardware Engineer

As Senior Hardware Engineer, you will be responsible for the hardware design of satellite communications equipment from concept and architecture definition to detail design and test.

The Senior Hardware Engineer will be joining a small team, you will have a great deal of control and input, steer the product direction, with back up of the larger business.

The projects will range from small contract related customisation projects to larger new product development activities with timescales from a few days up to 6-9 months.

Key responsibilities:

• Designing printed circuit boards with analog and digital parts
• Writing firmware to support the hardware development
• Providing technical support to production and other engineering teams
• Facilitating and participating in electronic design reviews and providing appropriate feedback
• Developing and executing test plans on analog and digital boards
• Debugging cards with complex problems
• Performing requirements analysis, requirements derivation from system level to firmware level requirements and architecture
• Undertaking integration activities with software and hardware
• Proposing improvements in tools, processes and techniques that support quality and innovation and make the firmware development more efficient and effective
• Actively contributing to defined aspects of the project to achieve optimal balance between requirements, schedule and cost
• Contributing to customer facing meetings through document preparation, presentations and participation in meetings
• Estimating time and effort required for hardware and firmware activities and deliver to these time and effort estimates to ensure cost and schedule adherence
• Reviewing technical proposals, and assisting with providing accurate estimates for the associated effort, costs and risks, for bids and proposals, leading to contract awards

Required Skills and Qualifications:

• Design of digital and Analog circuits
• Analog simulation
• Prior experience in embedded firmware development C/C++, assembly languages, and code development processes with debugging emulation and simulation.
• Working knowledge of the processor platforms such as Microchip/Atmel, Arm, Renesas and Freescale.
• Using up to date serial communications like Ethernet, USB, and PCIe
• Working knowledge of serial communication protocols such as USB, UART (Rs232, Rs484), I2C, SPI.
• Understanding of bare metal start-up of microcontroller.
• Ability to read, interpret and understand hardware schematics
• Experience of version control, change control and bug tracking tools and systems
• Experience of/exposure to best practice firmware development processes/lifecycles
• Knowledge of AC-DC and DC-DC converters

Desirable:

• VHDL for FPGA development.
• Embedded PC module integration.
• Developing complete designs using AMD Xilinx and Intel Altera devices and toolset.
• Knowledge of EMC standards and design principles.
• Knowledge of military standards is an important asset.
• Knowledge of FCC, EN and IEC standards is an asset.
• Knowledge of creation of system level power budgets
• Elaboration of constraints (impedances, current, stackup, etc.) for printed circuit board design
• Knowledge of the electronic design tool CADStar or equivalent PCB CAD Design tools
• Experience of FPGA module design and implementation
• Experience of FPGA firmware testing, test tools and design for test