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Senior Electrical Engineer - Payload Systems

Xona· Engineering
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Burlingame, California$173k - $197kFull-timePosted 1w ago

About the role

Senior Electrical Engineer to design, develop, and integrate electrical systems powering and controlling Xona's payload hardware, with hands-on lab work, system integration, and mentoring to elevate engineering practices.

Responsibilities

  • Design Sub-Systems: Own and design electrical subsystems such as power distribution, communication, FDIR. Capture requirements and manage trade studies.
  • Develop PCBAs: Design and develop reliable PCBAs. Source, derate, and test electrical components to ensure they can survive the harshness of space.
  • Own the Design Cycle: Take designs from initial concept through schematic capture, layout, multi-disciplinary reviews, and comprehensive test plan execution.
  • Be Hands on in the Lab: Bring up, troubleshoot and debug electrical systems in a lab environment using test equipment (e.g., oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, power meters).
  • Document Your Design: Maintain engineering documentation and develop electrical interface documents for satellite subsystems.
  • Support Integration and Test: See design through assembly, integration, and test activities, including system-level testing, validation, and integration onto the satellite.
  • Raise the Technical Bar: Mentor others and elevate team function through implementation of improved design practices and standards.

Qualifications

  • B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering or a related field.
  • Strong fundamentals in analog/digital circuit design, power systems, signal integrity, layout, and Design for Test/Manufacturing (DFT/DFM).
  • Experience with embedded control, architectures featuring FPGAs, MCUs, and communication buses (I2C, SPI, CAN, RS-422, Ethernet, etc).
  • Understanding of reliability methods, including Worst-Case Circuit Analysis (WCCA), part derating, and FMEA.
  • 5+ years of experience taking designs from schematic to layout, manufacturing, test and system integration.
  • Proficiency with electrical design and simulation tools (e.g., Altium, OrCAD, Spice).
  • Proven lab experience with hardware bring-up, board-level troubleshooting, and test automation.
  • A collaborative, team-oriented mindset and the ability to communicate effectively.
  • Rigorous attention to detail and a commitment to continuous process improvement.
  • Mentorship mindset with a desire to build repeatable engineering practices.

Skills

Required:Electrical designPCB design and analysisLab bring-up and debuggingRS-422, CAN, I2C, SPI, EthernetFMEA, WCCAAltium/OrCAD/Spice
Nice to have:DFT/DFMMechanical/assembly integrationMentorship

Benefits

  • The final compensation includes salary and equity; disclosed range is $173K – $197K with offers including equity.
Last updated Oct 14, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Xona

Next Era Navigational Intelligence | Xona

Xona is the navigation infrastructure company bringing real-time, centimeter-level certainty to any device, anywhere on Earth.

Location servicesPulsarGNSSNavigationPNTsatellites
Company profileWebsite

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