Lead Dielectric Materials Engineer

Heron Power•Scotts Valley, CA

1d•$130,000 - $189,000

About The Position

Heron Power is a startup company building cutting-edge power electronics for the 21st-century grid. We aim to de-bottleneck the growth of electricity generation and consumption with scalable, innovative, and less costly hardware solutions, accelerating the electrification of everything. Our first goal is to build better converters (inverters & rectifiers) to connect large-scale renewables, storage, and loads to the grid. Heron’s leadership team is made up of seasoned veterans who have designed and shipped gigawatts of power conversion products over the past decade. We understand that no one individual knows everything. We will all learn a lot together and from each other. We strive to build a collaborative, enriching environment conducive to personal, technical, and career growth. You can expect to work in a dynamic environment, driven by first principles engineering, solving difficult problems—with a strong bias toward hands-on execution and learning by doing. Job Overview Reliability at medium voltage is fundamental to whether our products can scale. A robust insulation system is often the difference between a promising prototype and hardware that performs in the field for decades. The grid cannot scale without more capable and more reliable power conversion hardware. Insulation systems are foundational to that reliability. In this role, you will help define the material and process backbone behind products that must perform under demanding electrical and thermal conditions for decades in the field. As the Lead for the Dielectric Insulation Systems, you will own the development, qualification, and manufacturing readiness of insulation systems used in our medium-voltage power conversion products. You will work across materials, interfaces, geometry, and process to ensure our designs meet electrical, thermal, mechanical, and production requirements simultaneously. This role spans dielectric materials, bonding systems, encapsulation, coatings, molding, potting, and composite insulation assemblies. You will define how we evaluate materials, how we qualify them, how we investigate failures, and how we translate first-principles understanding into robust, manufacturable hardware. This is a role for someone who can connect electric field stress, thermal cycling, material behavior, manufacturing process, and long-term reliability into one engineering problem—and solve it.

Requirements

5+ years of experience designing, selecting, or qualifying solid dielectric materials or insulation systems for medium- or high-voltage products such as transformers, bushings, sensors, capacitors, cables, power modules, or adjacent equipment
Strong understanding of polymer dielectrics and their interfaces with metals, ceramics, semiconductors, and other dissimilar materials
Deep knowledge of high-voltage fundamentals, including electric field stress, partial discharge, dielectric breakdown, and insulation degradation mechanisms
Hands-on experience with one or more of the following: potting, casting, molding, coating, encapsulation, impregnation, or insulation assembly for medium- or high-voltage hardware
Experience performing or leading failure analysis for insulation-related issues in fielded or prototype hardware
Experience translating material behavior and failure mechanisms into practical design rules, qualification plans, and process controls
Experience working cross-functionally to solve technical problems across design, manufacturing, reliability, and supply chain
Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience

Nice To Haves

Experience developing novel dielectric material systems to improve dielectric strength, thermal conductivity, adhesion, or process-ability
Experience with partial discharge measurement methods, high-voltage test fixture design, and insulation life testing
Knowledge of reliability engineering methods such as Weibull analysis, derating, HALT, ALT, and physics-of-failure approaches
Experience with thermomechanical analysis or modeling of insulation systems under thermal cycling
Track record of shipping medium-voltage products with demonstrated field reliability
Advanced degree in Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, Polymer Science, or a related field

Responsibilities

Develop and qualify insulation systems for high-power-density, medium-voltage power electronics intended for scale production
Define material selection criteria, screening methods, and qualification plans for dielectric materials, interfaces, and insulation assemblies
Characterize and evaluate dielectric strength, partial discharge behavior, dielectric loss, thermal performance, adhesion, environmental robustness, and long-term aging behavior
Lead technical investigations into insulation-related failure modes including partial discharge, breakdown, delamination, voiding, treeing, tracking, contamination, and thermomechanical degradation
Drive design decisions across materials, interfaces, creepage and clearance strategy, field management, and process selection to improve product reliability and manufacturability
Develop robust processes for potting, molding, encapsulation, coating, and assembly in partnership with Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, and Supply Chain
Support DFMEA and PFMEA activities by identifying key insulation-related design and process risks and driving mitigation plans
Partner with test and reliability teams to define accelerated test methods, interpret results, and close the loop between failure analysis and design improvement
Help establish internal standards, design rules, and validation approaches for insulation systems as Heron scales its product platform