Sr. Electrical Design Engineer, Satellites Payload (Starlink) Verified today
The Role
The Starlink team designs, builds, and operates a global communication network of over ten thousand satellites in low Earth orbit and dozens of antenna installations on the ground, delivering broadband internet to more than ten million customers worldwide. Nearly every key technology is developed in-house: flight computers, electric propulsion systems, advanced phased array antennas, and custom ASICs.
As a Senior Electrical Design Engineer on the Starlink Payload Engineering team, you will own the entire life-cycle of hardware that enables this connectivity. Your work sits at the intersection of electrical, mechanical, thermal, software, and antenna/RF engineering.
The team specializes in design of industry-leading phased array and parabolic antennas, as well as fully custom networking, compute, and modem hardware. Common design elements include high power mixed-signal ASICs, cutting-edge PAM4 SerDes, fully custom RF front ends and antenna elements, highly reliable and dense power conversion and distribution, extreme temperature environments, custom copper and optoelectronic interconnect, and tight electromechanical/thermal integration designed for mass manufacturing.
Engineers are deeply involved with their products from concept to deorbit. Typical ownership spans block diagrams and high-level concept of operations definition, requirements capture, part selection and schematic capture, PCB layout oversight, signal and power integrity analysis, supply chain and vendor engagement, hardware bring-up and qualification, production test definition, troubleshooting and failure analysis, review of hardware performance on orbit, and incorporation of lessons learned for the next generation.
Responsibilities
- Rapidly develop high-reliability electronics for satellites and spacecraft
- Drive system trades, requirements capture, component selection, analysis, schematic capture, PCB layout, prototyping, hardware bring-up, debugging, documentation, manufacturing, test, and on-orbit performance of complex electrical designs
- Get hands-on and support hardware through production, satellite integration, and flight
- Work closely with engineers from adjacent disciplines (mechanical, thermal, software, test, supply chain, silicon design, RF and antenna) to deliver tightly integrated, high-performance hardware
- Challenge assumptions, question requirements, learn from mistakes, and approach problems with an open mind
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, physics, or another STEM discipline
- 5+ years of experience in design or analysis of circuits, electronic products, or hardware
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Master's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or similar engineering discipline
- 5+ years of electronic product experience designing hardware from concept through production, with strong emphasis on full life-cycle development of new hardware products
- 3+ years of experience designing and implementing mixed-signal circuit boards from concept through production using processors, FPGAs, Ethernet, multi-GHz SerDes, DRAM interfaces (DDR4, LPDDR5), I2C, SPI, RF signal chains, operational amplifiers, analog to digital and digital to analog converters, and power supply components
- 3+ years of professional experience testing, troubleshooting, and debugging electronics
- Strong understanding of computers and programming languages (Python, C/C++)