Embedded Electronics Engineer

ABOUT US: Collaborative autonomy is how self-tasking teams of machines will solve hard human problems, and HavocAI is an unquestioned leader in collaborative autonomy. We set the standard for autonomous surface vessels for a wide range of defense and commercial maritime missions. Success requires us to grow quickly, and we’re looking for teammates who are passionate about solving hard problems, about pushing the envelope, and about preventing conflict and saving lives. Ambition is welcome to apply within. ROLE OVERVIEW HavocAI is seeking an Embedded Electronics Engineer to design, build, and validate the hardware that powers our autonomous systems. This role is for someone whose instinct is to reach for a schematic before a terminal, and who takes pride in building boards that work the first time — and keep working in real-world operating environments. This role sits at the hardware layer. You will own PCB design and bring-up across three core areas: power electronics and motor drive, embedded compute and SoC integration, and the vehicle electronics backbone that ties systems together. Software teams will own the stack above the hardware abstraction layer; your job is to ensure the hardware beneath it is fast, reliable, manufacturable, and ready for whatever platform comes next. WHAT YOU’LL OWN POWER ELECTRONICS & MOTOR DRIVE - Design and build electronic speed controllers and motor drive stages for brushless actuators across aerial, ground, and novel platforms - Select and validate FETs, gate drivers, shunt resistors, and passives to meet current handling, thermal, and efficiency targets - Implement low-level motor drive firmware, including FOC and BLDC commutation, on embedded MCUs as needed to validate and characterize hardware designs - Conduct power stage characterization, including efficiency curves, thermal mapping, and protection behavior under fault and overload conditions - Design telemetry signal chains for current sense, temperature, RPM, and related vehicle data - Define electrical interfaces to upstream systems - Work across voltage domains and platform types, adapting designs to the power budget, operating environment, and form factor of each vehicle EMBEDDED COMPUTE & SOC HARDWARE - Design and bring up custom carrier boards and daughter boards for SoC and System-on-Module platforms across HavocAI’s vehicle family - Own schematic capture and PCB layout for mixed-signal boards integrating power, high-speed digital interfaces, and analog sensor chains - Define and validate electrical interfaces between compute hardware and vehicle subsystems, including power rails, reset sequencing, SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, PCIe, and USB - Conduct board bring-up and electrical validation, including rail profiling, signal integrity checks, and fault isolation - Iterate hardware through DFM review, coordinate with contract manufacturers, and own the board revision process VEHICLE ELECTRONICS INTEGRATION - Design the electrical architecture that connects power, actuation, sensing, and compute subsystems across diverse vehicle types - Specify and select connectors, cabling, EMI mitigation components, and protection circuits appropriate to each operating environment and vibration profile - Define and document electrical interfaces between hardware and the software teams building above it, including pin definitions, timing constraints, and power requirements - Support field validation and hardware debugging through flight test, drive test, and field deployment - Contribute to hardware design standards and participate in reviews of other engineers’ work WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR CORE REQUIREMENTS - 4+ years of hands-on PCB design and hardware bring-up experience, including boards you personally took from schematic to validated prototype - Proficiency with a professional EDA tool such as KiCad, Altium, Cadence, or equivalent - Demonstrated depth in at least one of the following areas: power electronics / motor drive design or mixed-signal embedd