sonnen is hiring: Senior Power Electronics Hardware Engineer in Atlanta

We are looking for passionate people who believe in themselves and the impact they make on the product they work on. You will join a team with a culture based on solid values such as trustworthiness, collaboration, dedication, excellence, attention to details, quality designs, and innovations.

As a Senior Power Electronics Hardware Engineer, you will work in the Power Electronics (PWX) Hardware development group. This role is responsible for owning the power electronics hardware design and development of power converters from scratch to production floor. You will also be responsible for validation of the design, creating engineering specifications, creating engineering documents, topology selection, design reviews, schematic design, component selection, creating layout in Altium, release documentation for production, and reliability study and assessment while supporting product manufacturing and product testing.

This position is an in-person role based out of the Innovation Hub located in Stone Mountain, Georgia. This role requires agility, professionalism, and comfort in a rapidly changing environment. The right person is trustworthy and works hard even when no one is noticing.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design of single-phase and three-phase bidirectional inverters with the aim to gain maximum efficiency and cost-competitive design.
• Understand the marketing specification and derive/chose proper topology to meet the cost, efficiency, and performance targets.
• High voltage power semiconductor selection, switching behavior, and knowledge of expected performance before testing, including loss calculations in the converter/inverter system, and performing reliability and cost analysis with Si/SiC/GaN MOSFETs and diodes. Deep knowledge of gate drive and protection circuit design is required.
• Derive individual converter specifications from master specifications and estimate the power budget of individual converters.
• Good understanding of UL1741, IEC62019, and IEC 60730 and applying it to design.
• Understand the product certification process and know how to make compliance testing smoother (UL, CSA, FCC, etc.) at the design level.
• Design with isolated and non-isolated topologies, with a major focus on non-isolated designs.
• Design with active and passive cooling systems.
• Ownership of power layout and techniques for reduction of noise, EMI, EMC reduction, and other parasitic effects, including taking products to EMI/EMC laboratories and conducting in-house pre-compliance testing.
• In-depth understanding of magnetics and ability to design and build magnetics for prototype evaluation.
• Testing and troubleshooting to solve complex problems under pressure and provide feasible solutions in both the short and long term.
• Good communication and documentation skills.
• Self-driven; must be able to work as a team member in small interdisciplinary groups and independently.

Travel 5% of the time.

Specific Skills / Abilities:

• Strong understanding of power electronics systems, including inverters, converters, 4-wire, 3-wire AC systems, single-phase, two-phase, and three-phase systems, unbalanced operation, grounding schemes, and leakage current.
• Strong knowledge of safety procedures when working with hazardous current and voltage levels.
• Ability to understand complex schematics and board layouts (Altium).
• Strong understanding of signal integrity, noise issues, and signal processing for power electronics environments.
• Direct experience and involvement in designs using IGBT/MOSFET/GaN or other switching devices, including gate driver design, selection, and characterization.
• Must be able to lift a minimum of 50 lbs and stand for over 6 hours on the job.
• Experience working with contract manufacturers for final production support.
• Good understanding of digital control for power electronics, DSP, and microcontrollers.
• Familiarity with PV, energy storage systems, DC fast charging equipment, generators, and grid simulator operation.
• Outside-the-box thinker eager to work on new power conversion technologies and willing to derive innovative testing solutions for advanced power electronics.
• Ability to work in a dynamic, diverse, multicultural, and cross-functional team.

Education / Experience:

• Must have designed hard switching bidirectional AC/DC, DC/DC, and DC/AC (Single, 3 Phase) topologies.
• Five or more years of first-hand experience in medium to high power converter (up to 15KW) design and development.
• Electrical/Electronics/Power Engineering degree or higher specialization degrees with a power electronics major.
• Experience with high voltage up to 1000V or more and high power levels >2KW.
• Strong knowledge of power electronics systems working principles, including AC/DC, DC/AC, DC/DC, AC/AC conversion, and grid-connected converters.
• Experience conducting tests on multi-converter module systems, verifying individual converter module functionality as well as system-level/converter stack operation.
• Strong hands-on testing and troubleshooting experience.
• Must have a strong sense of development ownership, responsibility, and working commitment.

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