Power Electronics Technical Lead, Motor Drives
Based in Stevenage (hybrid)
Salary up to £57,000 + bonus + overtime
You’ve designed PMSM motor drives. You know what a gate drive does when the layout is wrong, why a current sensing loop won’t settle, and what EMC testing looks like when you’re unprepared.
Now, what if your job was making sure a whole team of engineers never has to learn that the hard way?
This is a power electronics technical lead role, sitting across a team of Tech Leads who design firing units, actuator and motor control electronics for complex defence systems. You won’t be on every schematic yourself. You’ll be the person each of those Tech Leads turns to when a design, a plan or a gate review needs an experienced eye.
Please note, you must be a British Citizen to be considered due to security clearance requirements.
What you’ll actually do
-
Be the go-to technical voice on power electronics and process questions across the team
-
Keep close to every Tech Lead’s project, through regular catch-ups and their reporting, so you can spot issues early and steer before they become problems
-
Review project plans and help teams get ready for gate reviews, including running pre-reviews where it helps
-
Act as the escalation route when a project needs a realistic, cost-effective technical answer
-
Help decide where work is best placed across projects and partners
-
Feed technical input into bids for new actuator and motor drive business
-
Find and drive process improvements, and help the team get the most out of them
Each Tech Lead needs something different from you. Some will want a sounding board, others more hands-on support, and judging which is which is part of the job.
What you’ll need
Essential
-
A strong power electronics design background, ideally including PMSM motor control or motor drive design, from automotive traction, defence, aerospace or industrial drives
-
Hands-on design experience across mixed analogue and digital control electronics, including:
-
Power inverters, discrete gate drives and 3 phase bridge power stages
-
DC-DC converters
-
Digital position encoders and analogue position sensors
-
Current sensing and signal conditioning
-
Discrete control logic
-
Experience across the full product development lifecycle
-
Design for test and design for manufacture (DFM) experience
-
Designing for EMC and environmental compliance
Desirable
-
Designing to high safety integrity standards, DAL or SIL
-
Working knowledge of systems engineering, system architecture, thermal management and reliability
-
Some experience guiding, reviewing or mentoring other engineers
If you’ve spent years designing traction inverters or motor drives and want your experience to count across several projects rather than one board, this is a natural next step. If you want to be heads-down designing every day, this probably isn’t the one for you.
The package
Up to £57,000 depending on experience, plus a company bonus of up to £2,500, pension contributions up to 14% combined, paid overtime, up to 15 days flexi leave, a healthcare cash plan. It’s hybrid, typically 3 days a week in Stevenage, and relocation support may be available.
