Electrical Engineer - Circuit Design and Power Electronics (Defense Startup)

Electrical Engineer, Power Electronics for Defense Avionics

Location: Los Angeles, CA (100% on-site)
Job Type: Full-time
Travel: Monthly weekend travel for test events and supplier visits
Pay: $150,000 to $220,000 per year, plus early-employee equity

Own the power and actuator drive electronics that fly on a venture-backed defense startup?s vehicles, with hardware flying every couple of weeks.

Must-Haves

• 5+ years in circuit design and power electronics
• Power systems experience in demanding hardware environments such as aerospace, defense, automotive, or robotics
• Strong PCB design and layout with a system-level EMC approach to grounding, shielding, filtering, and power integrity
• Hands-on lab experience debugging hardware and bringing up boards
• Proven ability to take designs from schematic through layout, integration, and test
• Experience in a fast-paced, 0-to-1 development environment
• Daily use of AI tools such as Claude or Cursor in your workflow
• BS in Electrical Engineering or related field
• (no visa sponsorship)

What You?ll Do

• Design power distribution and conversion, including battery management, regulation, and protection circuits
• Own actuator drive electronics, including power stage, current sensing, motor commutation, and position interfaces
• Create schematics, PCB layouts, and bring-up procedures for analog and digital avionics
• Lead EMI/EMC design and validation
• Integrate and tune hardware with embedded software, systems, and controls engineers
• Build test infrastructure and support debugging, integration, and environmental testing
• Help define scalable electrical architecture for high-rate manufacturing

Nice-to-Haves

• BLDC/PMSM motor drive design, gate drivers, and current sensing topologies
• FPGA interface experience
• DO-160 or similar environmental qualification
• Defense, racing, robotics, EV, or high-performance mobility background
• Altium or KiCad and SPICE experience

Compensation and Benefits

• $150,000 to $220,000 base salary
• Meaningful early-employee equity

About the Company
Our client is a well-funded, venture-backed defense technology startup building high-performance flight hardware for national security.

To apply, submit your resume for consideration.