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Staff Electrical Engineer

San Francisco, CA USA

Join us at Gradient, where our purpose is to revolutionize home comfort while championing environmental sustainability. Our mission is to combat the escalating challenge of climate change by redefining how homes are heated and cooled. Today, the environmental impact of heating and cooling systems surpasses that of the entire transportation sector, and without intervention, this trend is set to escalate drastically. At Gradient, we believe that ensuring comfortable living spaces shouldn’t come at the cost of our planet. We envision a future where every individual can enjoy the luxury of a comfortable home without contributing to carbon emissions. Our high-efficiency, low-carbon heat pump is just the beginning of our journey toward fully decarbonizing buildings. By joining Gradient, you’ll be at the forefront of a movement to make sustainable living accessible to all, ensuring healthier communities and a brighter, greener future.

We are looking for an experienced Staff Electrical Engineer to join us and help bring this vision to life. The ideal candidate is comfortable working in a dynamic environment and is able to clearly define a problem, document a solution, and deliver that solution in a maintainable manner. 

This role is required to be onsite in our San Francisco HQ 4-5 days per week. 

The estimated salary for this role is $180,000 to $220,000 USD per year + equity. An individual's compensation will vary on a number of factors including but not limited to geography, skills, education, experience and unique qualifications where applicable.

Responsibilities

  • Work cross functionally with business and product teams, while designing the electronic systems in Gradient’s product roadmap.
  • Lead product system requirement generation, architectural design, detailed design, layout, testing, and evaluation of mechanical and electro-mechanical devices, and controls to meet regulatory, safety, quality standards.
  • Building on existing schematics, part lists, and engineering requirements.
  • Defining function, configuration, and arrangement for circuit boards and system wiring and driving component selection to meet BOM cost targets.
  • Prototyping and testing electronic designs.
  • Performing schematic capture and PCB layout for analog and digital, and power circuit boards through fabrication and assembly drawings generation.
  • Run cross functional design reviews to evaluate electronics including circuit boards within Gradient’s products.
  • Establish and implement best practices around circuit design, board layouts, hardware verification, and electronics design controls. 
  • Interface with and support electronics consultants to meet company objectives. 
  • Evaluate, diagnose, and optimize performance of new electrical designs.
  • Build electronics supply chain relationships and manage vendors for prototype builds, and interface with the operations team heading into production.
  • Work with contract manufacturers to design functional circuit test (FCT) and In-Circuit Test (ICT) fixtures.
  • Mentor and coach early career engineers to expand their technical expertise.

Desired Qualification

  • Track record of shipping new consumer or industrial electronics products on a tight schedule.
  • Experience with motor-control systems development.
  • Experience designing split analog/digital/power electronics.
  • 15+ years developing custom mixed signal electronic systems.
  • Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a closely related field.
  • Experience with Design for Manufacturability, Design for Assembly, and Design for Testability.
  • Experience with ECAD libraries and library configuration management.
  • Experience managing others, either internal teams or consultants.

Bonus Qualifications

  • Experience designing systems that incorporate wireless communication SoCs, especially WiFi and BLE.
  • Proficiency with Altium.
  • Experience shipping 2 or more consumer products.
  • Experience with field-oriented control of BLDC motors. 
  • Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a closely related field.

Benefits 

  • Equity
  • Medical/vision/dental/life/disability insurance
  • 401k
  • Paid parental leave
  • Professional Development Stipend
  • Commuter benefits
  • Flexible PTO 
  • Relocation package ( out of state applicants only ) 

We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive company. We seek to create a culture where everyone can belong because we believe that people do their best work when they can show up every day as their authentic selves. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives.

Gradient is an equal opportunity employer. We do not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or genetic information, in compliance with applicable federal, state and local law.

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