About the Role
Design the inverter and DC/DC stages for MESH, owning the conversion stage end to end from schematic to hardware.
Responsibilities
- Architect and design the in-house inverter and DC/DC stages for MESH: topology, device selection across MOSFET, GaN, and SiC, gate drive, magnetics, and thermal.
- Take converters from schematic and simulation through prototype, bring-up, and test under real load.
- Design for the field: efficiency, EMI, ruggedization, and thermal survival in maritime and expeditionary conditions.
- Define the control approach for the power stage, working shoulder to shoulder with firmware on the loops.
- Own component selection, protection, and safety margins, and lead the design and selection of power electronics.
- Drive power electronics design across the full cycle, carrying converters all the way to working hardware.
- Get hands-on with switching design in MOSFET, GaN, or SiC, including gate drive and magnetics.
- Solve the thermal, EMI/EMC, and layout problems that come with high-power, high-frequency switching.
- Work the bench with scopes, probes, and power analyzers, debugging your own boards.
- Design from first-principles.
Requirements
- Experience with converters from kilowatts to hundreds of kilowatts, battery inverters, or grid-forming and grid-tied systems.
- A background in LFP battery systems, diesel gensets, or microgrids.
- Familiarity with UL, IEEE, or MIL power standards.
- Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual.
- Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.
Skills
- Switching converters
- Schematic design
- Hardware bring-up
- Testing under real load
- Efficiency
- EMI
- Ruggedization
- Thermal management
- Control systems
- Component selection
- Protection circuits
- Safety margins
- MOSFET
- GaN
- SiC
- Gate drive
- Magnetics
- Thermal design
- Simulation
- Prototype development
- EMI/EMC
- Layout
- Oscilloscopes
- Probes
- Power analyzers
- Debugging
Location
- Austin, TX
Work Type
- On-site
Salary/Compensations
- $100,000–$250,000 base + founding-team equity sized for the role + benefits.
Benefits
- Founding-team equity sized for the role
- Benefits
About the Company
- First Order Effects (FOE) is building America's Infrastructure Prime for the robotic era.
- Autonomous ships, drones, and robots are rewriting how the world moves, fights, and builds - but none of them work without infrastructure to power them, connect them, and launch and recover them.
- Our team comes from SpaceX, Anduril, Saronic, Lockheed Skunk Works, Forterra, and Fuse Energy.
- Before founding FOE, we built satellite ground stations that closed a national comms gap in days, deployed multi-megawatt power systems at commercial speed, and shipped autonomous surface vessels into Navy fleet production.
- We've built infrastructure at lightspeed before - now we're applying that playbook to an entire company.
Equal Opportunity
- FOE is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with FOE is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.
