Hardware Engineer — Rugged IoT / Telematics PCB

Position Specification
Hardware Engineer — Rugged IoT / Telematics PCB
Design · Development · Validation · Certification · Production Scale-Up
Prepared for candidate sourcing — Confidential
1. Position Overview
Our client designs and manufactures ruggedized, always-connected IoT and telematics devices for the
commercial fleet and trailer transportation market — battery- and solar-powered edge units that operate
unattended for years in harsh automotive environments. The client requires an experienced Hardware / PCB
Engineer to take board designs from concept through certified, mass-produced product, with primary
accountability for design, development, validation, regulatory certification, and production scale-up.
Direct experience with the client's specific product is not required. The essential requirement is deep
hardware fundamentals in power, mixed-signal, and RF design, together with a demonstrated ability to design
for field reliability at volume. Field reliability is the client's defining priority: units must reliably power on,
charge, connect, and operate without failure or return once deployed.
2. Scope of Responsibility
The engineer shall be responsible for the following:
• Design — Architect and capture multi-layer, mixed-signal PCBs integrating an ARM application processor
with DDR memory, a low-power microcontroller co-processor, power management, sensors, and multiple
radios; own schematic design, component selection, and PCB layout (or close direction of a layout
designer).
• Develop — Drive designs through EVT / DVT / PVT stages, including board bring-up, debug, rework, and
iterative respins; own the power tree, power sequencing, and low-power / sleep behaviour end to end.
• Validate — Define and execute formal validation plans covering signal and power integrity, thermal,
environmental (wide-temperature, vibration, humidity), transient and ESD immunity, and long-duration soak;
perform root-cause analysis of field returns and feed corrective actions back into the design.
• Certify — Lead the device through regulatory, carrier, and safety certification and secure approval for sale.
• Scale — Design for manufacturability and test (DFM / DFT); partner with the contract manufacturer on NPI,
test fixtures, yield, and cost; manage BOM, component sourcing, second-sourcing, and lifecycle /
obsolescence.
3. Detailed Responsibilities
Board and mixed-signal design
• Multi-layer PCB design with controlled impedance, high-speed digital (DDR and high-speed serial), analog
front-ends, and disciplined analog / digital partitioning.
• Application-processor and MCU support circuitry: power sequencing, reset and boot, memory, debug
interfaces (JTAG / SWD), and inter-processor links (SPI / UART / I2C).
Power and battery systems (core competency)
• Multi-source power design across vehicle rails (12 / 24 V), rechargeable backup battery, and solar input,
including charging, fuel-gauging, and PMIC / regulator design.
• Ultra-low-power sleep / wake design and brownout / UVLO resilience: the device must wake reliably and
must never latch into a dead or deep-discharged state under marginal power.
Hardware Engineer — Position Specification · Confidential Page 2
• Protection engineering — reverse-polarity, load-dump and transients (e.g. ISO 7637), over-voltage, inrush,
and thermal limits — implemented safely such that a protection action can never strand the device offline.
Wireless / RF, sensing and interfaces
• Integration of cellular (LTE), Bluetooth Low Energy, sub-GHz, and GNSS: RF matching, antenna selection
and placement, RF layout, shielding, and coexistence / EMC.
• Sensor and interface front-ends over I2C / SPI / UART / CAN / RS-485, including IMU, temperature /
humidity, pressure / thermocouple, and other analog and digital sensing.
Reliability, validation, and manufacturing
• Ownership of Design-for-Reliability: derating, worst-case analysis, thermal budgeting, and DFMEA.
• Development of bench and automated test plans and fixtures; support of HALT / HASS and environmental /
EMC pre-scans.
• DFM / DFT reviews, ICT and functional-test development, and contract-manufacturer handoff.
Certification and compliance
• Leadership of certification across FCC / IC / CE / RED, carrier and PTCRB (including operator-specific
approvals), automotive EMC, e-mark, environmental / IP rating, and battery transport and safety (UN 38.3).
• Preparation of test units, coordination with accredited test laboratories, and closure of findings.
4. Required Qualifications (Mandatory)
The candidate must possess the following:
• BS or MS in Electrical / Electronic Engineering, or equivalent demonstrated experience.
• A minimum of 5 years designing and shipping electronic hardware products, covering schematic capture,
PCB layout (or layout direction), board bring-up, and debug.
• Strong power-electronics fundamentals: switching and linear regulators, battery charging, power
sequencing, and low-power design.
• Proven mixed-signal design capability and working competence in high-speed digital (DDR routing; signaland power-integrity principles).
• Hands-on laboratory proficiency with oscilloscope, logic analyzer, DMM, spectrum analyzer, and
programmable power / load equipment, including rework and failure analysis.
• A track record of taking at least one product from prototype through mass production and certification.
• Fluency in a professional EDA toolchain (Altium, OrCAD, KiCad, or equivalent) and the ability to read and
apply datasheets and application notes critically.
5. Preferred Qualifications
• RF / wireless hardware experience (cellular, BLE, sub-GHz, or GNSS), including antenna integration and
EMC.
• Automotive, rugged, or battery-powered product experience (wide-temperature, vibration, transient
immunity, unattended field devices).
• Board-level familiarity with ARM application processors (i.MX-class) and 32-bit microcontrollers
(STM32-class).
• Experience owning regulatory and carrier certification end to end.
• Sufficient firmware fluency to reason about power states, sleep / wake, watchdogs, boot, and inter-processor
communication, and to debug hardware / firmware boundary issues.
• DFM / DFT, NPI, and contract-manufacturer partnership experience, including component sourcing and EOL
management