Senior Power Electronics Engineer

About the role

We’re looking for a Senior Power Electronics Engineer to own the electrical and power architecture of Gradient’s robots: how they’re powered, how they sense, and how they’re controlled. This is an end-to-end ownership role with power electronics at its core.

You’ll define our power architecture from input power down to the motor drives and sensors, run the trade studies that set our design direction, and take boards from schematic through bring-up to production. You’ll partner closely with mechanical and software teams, and the standards you set will shape every machine we ship. The electronics you design become the nervous system of our robots.

Responsibilities

• Own power architecture end-to-end: define power distribution, conversion, and protection across our robots, and run the trade studies behind key design decisions
• Systems design
• Design and validate power electronics, including DC/DC converters, motor drives, gate drivers, power distribution boards, and protection circuitry, from schematic and layout through bring-up and test
• Own instrumentation and controls: partner with mechanical engineers on sensing and actuation, build electronics with custom PCBs or industrial components, and write firmware that gives software a reliable control interface
• Take designs to production: drive thermal performance and manufacturability, and partner with board vendors and contract manufacturers on yield
• Own electrical safety and compliance: set high-power and high-voltage safety practices for our lab and build floor, design for compliance from the start (EMI/EMC, harmonics, arc flash, product safety), and take our robots through testing and certification so they’re safe to install, operate, and service in customer facilities
• Set the electrical bar: lead design reviews, keep documentation and cross-team compatibility current, and mentor engineers as the team grows

Minimum Qualifications

• BS or MS in Electrical Engineering or a related field
• 5+ years of electrical design experience, including power electronics designs you’ve taken to production
• Deep power electronics fundamentals: converter topologies (buck, boost, flyback, etc.), sizing discrete components (controllers, gate drivers, MOSFETs, magnetics, capacitors, sensing), protection circuitry, and common failure modes
• Motor drive design experience: gate drivers, H-bridges, BLDC/PMSM, FOC
• Hands-on PCB design and layout for power and mixed-signal boards, including thermal and layout-level EMC considerations
• Experience with high-power and high-voltage safety principles and best practices, EMI/EMC mitigation and compliance testing, and taking hardware through safety certification
• A track record of defining requirements yourself and driving cross-system problems to resolution when the spec is unclear
• Strong hardware debugging: you know how to attack a board- or system-level problem, document it, and fix it fast
• An obsession with quality: you want projects not just done, but done well
• Able to work on-site in San Francisco 5 days/week (6 days/week if needed during crunch time), embedded in the team

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at a robotics, industrial automation, automotive, or other motor-driven hardware company
• Firmware development experience (embedded C/C++ or Rust, motor control, communication protocols)
• Experience simulating power electronic circuits (LTspice, PLECS, or similar)
• Comfort using AI tools to multiply your own output

Additional information

If you’ve built power hardware that shipped and you want to own the electrical side of a new class of robots, we want to hear from you. It’s okay if your qualifications don’t match every line here. We’re aggressively trying to learn everything we can about robotics, and you’ll help set that direction.