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About the Company
Our client is an early-stage defense technology startup building autonomous systems for the U.S. military, along with the rugged, portable power systems that keep them running in the field. They're already under active government contract, their first vehicle is heading to military range testing in the coming months, and it's slated for real operational use shortly after. If you join now, your hardware ships in months, not years.
The team is lean, fast and deeply technical. Leadership includes a former lead powertrain engineer on one of the highest-performance production EVs ever built, and a career Navy officer who ran unmanned undersea programs. Their long-term play is Tesla- and SpaceX-style vertical integration: designing and owning the critical subsystems in-house instead of buying them. That means you won't be integrating a dev kit or tweaking a reference design. You'll be drawing the board.
They're growing from roughly 15 people today toward 5x plus over the next 12 months, with the intent to promote from within as the team scales.
This is a direct hire, permanent placement position for a client of AdAstra Talent Advisors.
About the RoleThis is a Responsible Engineer role, modeled on the SpaceX approach: you own your subsystem, you make the calls, and the buck stops with you (with real peer review along the way). It's hands-on IC work, not management. Our client is hiring three Senior EEs right now, each owning one lane:
Embedded compute / high-speed digital. Design the vehicle's main compute board in-house: a custom carrier board for an NVIDIA Jetson module, replacing the third-party board in use today. High-speed interfaces, signal and power integrity, bring-up with the embedded software team.
Vehicle power electronics. Own the vehicle's electrical distribution system end to end: power distribution units, battery management, high-voltage to low-voltage DC-DC conversion and motor power electronics.
Expeditionary power systems. Lead the electrical design, from scratch, of a portable, combat-grade power and energy-storage system: the battery system and the voltage conversion behind it. Fully government-funded, with a delivery horizon roughly a year out.
Requirements, architecture and the hard tradeoffs, often with incomplete information
Schematics and multilayer PCB layout
Board bring-up in the lab alongside embedded software, and debug to root cause with scopes, logic analyzers and thermal cameras
Validation test plans and execution
Field testing and sea trials
Taking designs to production with board fabs, assembly houses and component suppliers
Failure investigation after deployment
Engineers who have taken custom electrical hardware from a blank sheet to a deployed system, ideally under tight size, weight, power and environmental limits. You can name the topology, the stackup, the part and why you chose it. You've owned the decision, not just executed it.
Deep, practical expertise in at least one lane above
A track record of designing your own boards, not integrating off-the-shelf modules
Hands-on lab bring-up and debug experience
Some experience moving a design from prototype toward production
First-principles thinking and a bias for speed
In your first months, your lane has an architecture you chose and can defend, and boards are on the bench
Your hardware is in the water during range testing and trials, and you're the one reading the data
Your design is headed to production, with vendors you picked and a design built to be manufactured at volume
As the team grows, you're a natural candidate to lead it
Relevant experience with hands-on electrical design
Schematic capture and multilayer PCB layout experience
Willingness to support field testing and sea trials
Defense, aerospace, eVTOL, EV, robotics or autonomous vehicle hardware
Harsh-environment, maritime or ruggedized electronics
Safety-critical or high-reliability products
Signal-integrity and power-integrity analysis
Early-stage startup experience, or a greenfield program inside a larger organization
Logistical Requirements
Full time, on-site in the Los Angeles area
Relocation support available
This is a high-intensity season ahead of operational deployment. Expect long weeks and a team that's all in on the mission.
ITAR Requirement
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by ITAR (22 CFR 120.15), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.
Equal Opportunity
Our client is an equal opportunity employer. They evaluate qualified applicants without regard to 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.About AdAstra
AdAstra Talent Advisors is a headhunting and talent advising firm focused on the Climate, Space, and Defense sectors of Hard Tech. We specialize in pairing highly technical and executive talent with some of the world’s leading Hard Tech startups.
At AdAstra, we catalyze the innovations that future generations depend on by placing the right people in the right seats. Our dedicated work enables inconceivable technology from Earth, to the stars. And it’s all because of trailblazing talent like you - those driven to do what’s never been done before.
We care about long term relationships with both candidates and companies. Even if the role we initially discuss isn’t a perfect fit, it’s likely we’ll have something relevant to share with you in the future.
Join us on our journey by following along via LinkedIn!
CEO, Seyka Mejeur | LinkedIn profile
CTO / COO, Brian Mejeur | LinkedIn profile
AdAstra Talent Advisors | LinkedIn profile
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