Senior Electronic Designer

Reports to: Chief Technology Officer

This role covers the design of digital, mixed-signal and radio-frequency

(RF) electronics for unmanned aircraft. The work spans schematic capture, high-speed

and RF printed circuit board (PCB) layout, design verification, prototyping, and release

of manufacturing documentation. You will translate system-level requirements into

board-level designs that meet performance, manufacturability, electromagnetic

compatibility and signal-integrity targets, working alongside firmware, mechanical,

optical and systems engineers to deliver complete products.

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What you will work on:

Airborne electronics across three broad areas:

- Avionics and control electronics - sensor-rich mixed-signal boards with low-

noise analogue front ends, deterministic serial and CAN interfaces, and

redundancy and fail-safe provisions.

- RF and software-defined radio - transceiver front ends, filtering and switching,

low-jitter clock and local-oscillator distribution, high-speed converter interfaces,

and isolation and shielding for co-located radios.

- Compute and payload boards - carrier and interface boards for embedded

compute modules, with multi-gigabit serial links, camera and network interfaces,

storage, and sequencing and thermal provisions.

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Translate system-level requirements into board-level electrical requirements and

architecture.

- Produce schematics and multi-layer PCB layouts for digital, mixed-signal and RF

designs using Altium Designer or an equivalent ECAD tool.

- Apply high-speed design practice: controlled-impedance transmission lines,

length and skew matching, termination strategy, return-path integrity and stack-

up planning.

- Apply RF layout practice: 50 Ω routing, grounding and via stitching,

transmit/receive isolation, and shielding.

- Design for electromagnetic compatibility and interference (EMC/EMI) at both

board and system level, and support pre-compliance and formal testing.

- Run signal-integrity simulation (HyperLynx or similar) and circuit and system

simulation (LTspice, QSpice, MATLAB/Simulink).

- Carry out design-for-manufacture (DFM) and design-for-test reviews, and select

components with EU/NATO supply-chain and export-control constraints in mind.

- Build, bring up, debug and validate prototypes using vector network analysers,

spectrum analysers, EMI receivers, oscilloscopes and laboratory supplies.

- Optimise designs against cost, availability, thermal and performance targets.

- Maintain design data, libraries and documentation under version control, and

release complete manufacturing packages (fabrication, assembly, bill of

materials, test).

- Work with firmware, software, mechanical and optical engineers through

integration and qualification.

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- Bachelor's or Master's degree in electronic engineering or a related field.

- At least 5 years designing schematics and multi-layer PCBs for high-speed or

high-frequency products.

- Demonstrated RF design work from roughly 100 MHz to 6 GHz, including front-

end and antenna-interface design.

- Experience with high-speed digital systems built around microcontrollers,

processors, FPGAs or GPUs - including at least one of DDR memory, PCI

Express, USB 3.x, Ethernet or MIPI camera interfaces.

- Hands-on experience with SMD component soldering and PCB rework. 

- Demonstrated ability to debug and troubleshooting high-frequency circuits,

including impedance measurement and characterization using a VNA and

related RF test equipment.  

- Familiarity with MIPI camera interfaces, satellite navigation (GNSS/GPS)

receivers, Ethernet and CAN, preferably DroneCAN.

- Strong grasp of EMC/EMI control at both layout and system level.

- Working knowledge of IPC standards for PCB design (IPC-2220 series, IPC-

7351, IPC-7352) and of IPC product classes.

- Clean criminal record.

Nice to have

- Experience with flight-control or avionics hardware, and familiarity with open

autopilot ecosystems.

- Experience with software-defined radio transceivers and low-phase-noise

clocking.

- Experience designing carrier or interface boards for embedded compute

modules.

- Familiarity with airborne environmental and EMC qualification such as RTCA

DO-160 or MIL-STD-461/810.

- Thermal and mechanical awareness for compact, weight-constrained airborne

assemblies.

- Ability to lead technical tasks and coordinate engineering activities.

- Nationality of an EU/NATO member state or of a NATO partner (Australia,

Japan, New Zealand, South Korea), or Ukraine.

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