Senior Hardware Design Engineer

Embedded Hardware - Senior Engineer

We're looking for an experienced Senior Hardware Design Engineer with 7-10 years of experience to design and develop automated test equipment, functional test fixtures, interface electronics, and validation hardware used in manufacturing environments for fire alarm panels, control boards, and related electronic assemblies.

This role focuses on development of robust, production-ready electrical test platforms that improve repeatability, reduce operator dependency, and make test processes more automated, reliable, and error-proof. The engineer will own hardware design and implementation for fixture electronics, instrument interfacing, safety interlocks, DUT programming interfaces, and test system integration, while supporting prototyping, validation, and manufacturing deployment.

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Key Responsibilities

Test Hardware Architecture & Fixture Electronics

• Design and develop electrical architecture for automated test fixtures and production test stations used for PCBAs and assembled electronic products.

• Create schematics, interface boards, wiring architectures, and electrical documentation for manufacturing test systems.

• Define hardware partitioning between fixture electronics, DUT interface boards, instrumentation, power switching, safety circuits, and operator indicators.

• Participate in cross-functional design reviews with firmware, mechanical, manufacturing, and quality teams.

DUT Interface, Measurement & Control

• Design circuits for safe and repeatable interfacing to DUT power rails, digital IO, analog signals, communication ports, relays, indicators, sensors, and user-interface elements.

• Develop switching, signal routing, conditioning, and measurement interface circuits for validation of voltage rails, current draw, startup behaviour, sequencing, protection features, communications, and functional IO.

• Support implementation of test coverage for analog, digital, timing, communication, and safety-related behaviour.

• Design firmware programming and debug interfaces for DUT flashing, configuration, and diagnostic access.

Instrumentation & Production Test Integration

• Select and integrate instruments and interface electronics such as DMMs, programmable power supplies, DAQ modules, relays, multiplexers, oscilloscopes, and communication adaptors as required.

• Develop robust harnessing, connector strategies, pogo-pin or fixture interconnect concepts, and serviceable field wiring for production use.

• Ensure repeatable electrical performance with appropriate grounding, shielding, ESD protection, isolation, and noise mitigation techniques.

• Support integration with production systems, serial number scanning, traceability requirements, and manufacturing application interfaces.

Safety, Interlocks & Error-Proofing

• Design guarded, interlocked, and operator-safe electrical systems that prevent exposure to hazardous voltages and support safe-state behaviour.

• Implement lid interlock circuits, zero-potential safety logic, emergency stop or fault handling provisions, and pass/fail visual indication hardware.

• Support poka-yoke / error-proofing mechanisms to reduce incorrect loading, incorrect connections, and operator misinterpretation of results.

• Design for diagnostic visibility, serviceability, and maintainability in production environments.

Prototyping, Debugging & Validation

• Support fixture bring-up, electrical debugging, root cause analysis, and pilot-line validation.

• Use oscilloscopes, logic analysers, power analysers, and other lab instruments to debug fixture behaviour, measurement issues, noise, timing, or interface problems.

• Validate accuracy, repeatability, false-fail performance, and robustness of test hardware across known-good and known-bad DUTs.

• Collaborate with manufacturing and quality teams during pilot runs and release to production.

Documentation & Delivery

• Create complete hardware development documentation including schematics, BOMs, wiring diagrams, interface definitions, test hardware drawings, validation summaries, and release files.

• Support ECO/change-control workflows and maintain clear revision history for fixture hardware.

• Deliver prototype hardware, debug updates, and final production-release design files.

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Qualifications

• Experience: 7-10 years in embedded hardware, test hardware, industrial electronics, or manufacturing test system development.

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electronics, Electrical Engineering, or related discipline.

• Strong expertise in mixed-signal circuit design, measurement interfaces, power distribution, protection circuits, switching, and industrial-grade hardware design.

• Hands-on experience with board bring-up, debugging, instrumentation integration, communication interfaces, and production test environments.

• Experience with fixture electronics, DUT interfacing, programming interfaces, or automated test systems preferred.

• Strong understanding of grounding, shielding, ESD protection, isolation, and noise mitigation for repeatable measurements.

• Ability to work across hardware, firmware, mechanical, quality, and manufacturing teams to deliver practical factory-ready systems.

• Strong documentation, problem-solving, and system-level thinking skills.

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Tech Stack & Tools

• Schematic Capture & PCB Layout: Altium Designer

• Analysis & Debug: Oscilloscope, logic analyser, DMM, power analyser, DAQ tools, LTSpice

• Interfaces & Protocols: UART, I2C, SPI, CAN, RS485/RS232, Ethernet, USB, GPIO-based fixture control

• Test System Elements: Programmable power supplies, switching/relay cards, measurement interfaces, DUT programming tools, barcode / serial scanning interfaces

• Version Control & Documentation: Standard engineering documentation and release control tools

• Lab / Validation: Harness validation tools, ESD controls, calibration support tools, pilot-line debug equipment

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Core Competencies

• Systems Thinking | Test Hardware Architecture | Mixed-Signal Design | Measurement Integrity | Production Test Automation | Safety Interlocks | Error-Proofing Mindset | Debugging Excellence | Manufacturing Support | Documentation Discipline | Ownership Mindset | Collaboration | Accountability | Continuous Improvement