Power Electronics Electrical Engineering Lead

Joby Aviation•San Carlos, CA

1d•$201,000 - $307,700

About The Position

Imagine a piloted air taxi that takes off vertically, then quietly carries you and your fellow passengers over the congested city streets below, enabling you to spend more time with the people and places that matter most. At Joby, we've been working to make that dream a reality since 2009 and we're now in the final stages of certifying our aircraft with the FAA. With plans to launch our aircraft in the US and Dubai, we're now scaling manufacturing and preparing for the launch of our commercial service. Overview Joby Aviation is seeking a talented power electronics leader to guide our growing power electronics team into the future of electric aviation. This is a hands-on technical leader who can quickly grasp technical concepts as they relate to high-voltage inverters, DC-DC converters and power conversion more broadly. The ideal leader will possess deep technical understanding of power conversion topologies, wide-bandgap device physics, analog and digital domains and strong leadership in deep-dive root cause analysis processes. The successful candidate will help shape and define future architectures for electric propulsion and power conversion at Joby, working closely with mechanical, software, and other cross-functional teams and contribute towards the design of prototype motor-control inverters and DC/DCs from 0.5-200 kW. This is a hands-on position. Engineers are responsible for seeing their projects through from concept design to delivery and support of hardware. Optimizing designs for reliability, weight, and efficiency will be a focus.

Requirements

M.S. in electrical engineering or related discipline
Strong EE fundamentals, including:
°10 years designing and developing power electronics, in particular, inverters for driving 50kW to 200kW motors
°Strong grasp of motor control theory for surface and interior permanent magnet machines
Schematic capture and PCB design
Experience with component selection
Completed (designed/built/tested) high voltage/high power designs
Great communication skills

Nice To Haves

Ph.D. in relevant discipline with a focus in power electronics
3-5 years working in aerospace with a strong background in DO-160 compliance
Familiarity with Altium Designer
Wide bandgap semiconductors
Exposure to regulatory certification
Design-for-reliability, including use of DFMEA and fault trees
Designing for high EMI environments
Battery systems

Responsibilities

Down-select from multiple architectural paths to those that specifically address Joby’s unique needs for gravimetric and volumetric power densities.
Present concepts to technical leaders identifying technical challenges and risks.
Prioritize the power electronics team’s tasks to meet company objectives.
Conduct design reviews that effectively reduce board spins while maintaining a high speed development process.
Guide the team through critical root cause analyses that lead to objective conclusions and actions that contain and resolve failures.
Create processes that streamline efficiencies and enhance creativity while capturing documentation necessary in an aerospace environment.
Collaborate with mechanical engineers to optimize placement of high power modules/components and bus bars.
Define how the team works to create a free-flowing design environment while also capturing requirements, producing DFMEAs, defining and executing verification activities.