Staff Embedded Systems Electrical 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 for the traditional home electric panel, harnessing enhanced technology for metering, monitoring, and control. 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 is seeking an experienced and driven power electronics engineer to be instrumental in the development of market-leading converter hardware through all stages of the product’s lifecycle. In this role, candidates will drive efforts to optimize our partner’s power systems 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 embedded systems, power electronics, and magnetics-focused electrical engineers to advance SPAN’s product portfolio.

In this role, you will:

• Distill detailed analysis of power system components and behaviors to critical metrics of concern for company-wide discussion.
• Support executive staff with business analysis of research and development projects and manufacturing options e.g. outsource versus internal to SPAN and which components are ripe for vertical integration.
• Develop and validate accurate power electronics, solar, and battery models to better understand system use cases with SPAN’s panel, support modeling infrastructure, and maintain a database of relevant component models and product metrics.
• Build prototype components and assemblies and support buildout of electrical, reliability, safety, and environmental laboratories. Develop and perform tests related to compliance, safety, environmental, and reliability.
• Work with contract manufacturers throughout the full product lifecycle to have parts made to specification achieve our standards for product quality and yield.
• Work closely with the mechanical, software, and controls teams to optimize the overall product, including system thermals, compute requirements, functional safety behaviors, and design for compliance and manufacturability.
• Own full product lifecycle: specification, design, prototype, certification, reliability, validation, and manufacturing.
• Build and manage a resource plan and timeline for electronics development.

About You 

Required Qualifications

We are seeking a lead power electronics engineer who has:

• MS in Electrical Engineering with a focus on Power Electronics.
• 7+ years of experience developing power electronics technologies in the automotive, energy, or aerospace industries.
• Experience with power semiconductor selection (Si/SiC/GaN MOSFETs, diodes), gate drive, and protection circuit design.
• Hands-on leadership approach whether it be building a prototype or performing testing.
• Experience leading projects and architecture with a diverse team under tight timelines.
• Solid understanding of the theory and application of magnetics (inductors, transformers) and capacitors (Electrolytic, film, and Ceramic).
• Familiar with schematic capture and power converter circuit modeling/simulation tools.
• Experience in supervision of PCB layout for minimal stray inductance and capacitance, placement strategies for better manufacturability, power/signal plane definition, and EMC optimization.
• Knowledge of basic power electronics control theory.
• Experience with embedded programming including working with / guiding firmware developers.
• Experience working closely with contract manufacturers and leading design for manufacturing.
• Proficiency with basic EE tools (Oscilloscopes, Network Analyzers, Signal Generators, etc.).

Bonus Qualifications

We would love to hire someone who has:

• Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with a focus on Power Electronics.
• Knowledge in environmental, reliability, and safety requirements for residential and commercial power applications.
• Experience specifying embedded controllers for power electronics – i.e. choosing between FPGA, microcontroller, hardware-accelerated gate drive, etc.
• Knowledge of national and international safety and EMC requirements relevant to the design of power converters such as UL, FCC, National Electric Code (NEC), IEC, and ISO.
• Demonstrated success working in a cross-disciplinary, multi-cultural environment.

Life at SPAN

SPAN embraces diversity and equal opportunity in a serious way. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. 

Headquartered in San Francisco’s vibrant SoMa neighborhood, we are an eclectic group of creative thinkers who value open communication, teamwork, and a ‘make it happen’ approach to addressing complex challenges. 

Our CEO, Arch Rao⁠—former head of the Tesla Powerwall team⁠—fosters an energetic and collaborative environment, with a strong emphasis on maintaining work-life-balance across the organization.

We’re hiring talented individuals who are driven by success and are passionate about shaping the future of renewable energy. If that sounds like you, we’d love for you to consider joining the rapidly growing team at SPAN.

The Perks:

⚡ Competitive compensation + equity grants at a well-funded, venture-backed company

⚡ Comprehensive benefits (including medical; dental, vision, life and disability insurance)

⚡ Comfortable, sunny office space located near BART and Caltrain public transit

⚡ Strong focus on team building and company culture (events, meet-ups, clubs)

⚡ Flexible hours and unlimited PTO

Our Mission & Values:

At SPAN, we believe that powering your home with clean energy should be a simple and delightful experience that is at its essence human-centered and technology-forward.

Our core values include:

• Making home energy more accessible, intuitive, and convenient.

• Enabling homes and vehicles to be powered by the sun.

• Building resilient homes with reliable power.

• All-electric everything.

• A more flexible & distributed grid.

Interested in joining our team? Submit an application today and we’ll be in touch with the next steps!