Staff Electrical Hardware Engineer

Our Mission  

SPAN develops products that accelerate the rapid adoption of renewable energy in the home. The flagship SPAN Smart Panel is the first true evolution of the traditional home electric panel, harnessing enhanced metering, monitoring, and control technology. An expanded product suite of intelligent, integrated solutions radically lowers the cost and complexity of energy upgrades–including solar, batteries, and EVs–empowering homeowners to be active, resilient, and informed players in the energy market. 

The Role 

SPAN’s Power Electronics group seeks an experienced and driven Staff Electrical Hardware Engineer to be instrumental in developing market-leading converters hardware through all stages of the product’s lifecycle. In this role, you will drive the efforts to research, develop and optimize our power system portfolio integrated with SPAN’s panel, grow SPAN’s IP, and collaborate with software, firmware, controls, and mechanical teams to implement technologies that electrify the home and delight our customers. Candidates should be comfortable and excited to grow a team of highly skilled power electronics, hardware design, EMC, and magnetics-focused electrical engineers to advance SPAN’s product portfolio.

In this role, you will:

• Develop, design, and document different hardware circuit designs for power electronics converters.

• Support the definition of Power Systems architectures and create engineering requirements for components and system integration.

• Conduct and lead the validation, qualification, and selection process for semiconductors and magnetics, among other components inside the hardware designs.

• Assess the risk of components and subsystems inside the design for complying with safety, reliability, and manufacturing standards.

• Collaborate with internal and external teams.

• Build prototype components and assemblies, optimizing components to meet system requirements.

About You

Required Qualifications

We are seeking an experienced electrical engineer who has:

• Ph.D. or Masters in Electrical Engineering

• Experience in power electronics product development projects up to certification and mass production.

• Experience with high voltage power semiconductor characteristics (Si/SiC/GaN MOSFET’s, diodes), gate drive, and protection circuit design.ning subsystems

• Solid knowledge of DC/DC and DC/AC topologies used in high-power converters.

• Proficient in using Altium for designing power converters projects involving high-frequency mixed signals, current sensors, relays, power protection, and power conditioning circuits..

• Experience in defining Test and Engineering requirements, CAD drawings, harness design, and documentation release.

• Experience interacting with Contract Manufacturers in selecting components, PCBA design assembly, and rules for best manufacturing practices.

• Solid knowledge in semiconductors, magnetics (inductors, transformers), and capacitors (Electrolytic, film, and Ceramic) and reliability for such components.

• Solid understanding of designing products under UL, IEC or NEC Standards

• Hands-on approach, whether it be building a prototype or performing testing.

• Highly Interested in growing in an exciting company working towards one of the world’s most important goals of supporting the decarbonization of energy generation and consumption.

Bonus Qualifications

We would love to hire someone who has:

• Ph.D. with at least three to five years of Industry Experience

• Or a BS or MSc with at least five years of Industry Experience

• Experience in defining safety requirements and working with cross-functional teams to create system requirement documentation.

• Experience working in DFMEA processes.

• Demonstrated success working in a cross-disciplinary, multi-cultural environment.

• Experience developing performance validation, environmental testing, and reliability testing.

The U.S. base salary range for this position is $159,000 - $188,000 plus benefits, equity and variable compensation for Sales-related roles. This range represents SPAN’s good faith estimate of competitively-priced salary for the role based on national, real-time industry data from companies of a similar growth stage. This range reflects minimum and maximum new hire salaries for the role across US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by location and individual factors including relevant skills, experience and education or training. This range correlates to the relative level of the candidate we believe we need for the role and may require an adjustment for candidates of a different level. 

Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the location this role is based during the hiring process. 

Why Span?

SPAN offers a unique opportunity at a startup based in the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco. We are a small, diverse team of creative thinkers. We value open communication, teamwork, and a make-it-happen attitude - no job is too big or too small. We strive to make change by imagining what the future could be and building a product to complete that vision. We are looking to grow our team with talented people who are on the same mission to shape the future of energy.