Senior Principal Electrical Engineer

We are seeking a Senior Principal Electrical Engineer for one of our portfolio companies. This person will join the Systems Engineering team comprising of Mechanical, Electrical, and Optical Engineering. This is a hands-on role where the ideal candidate has core competencies and subject matter expertise in various aspects of electrical design, and has successfully influenced decision-makers, product features and the customer experience.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate cross-functionally to define, guide, and own aspects of system architecture and product definition.

• Analyze key system trade-offs and propose solutions, including but not limited to the design of high-performance, low-power, high-quality products, guiding electrical and mechanical layouts, and assessing feature integration feasibility.

• Own high-speed board-level electrical designs, which include schematic capture, layout, power budgeting, and navigating challenges related to signal integrity, power integrity, EMC, and RF.

• Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to develop system validation, which includes testing for thermal, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, acoustic, signal integrity, power integrity, and stress testing.

• Define and execute the board-level hardware bring-up plan.

• Define the manufacturing test plan at both board and system levels, and work closely with third-party test fixture vendors to define, develop, and validate test fixtures for manufacturing tests.

• Collaborate with the Mechanical and Optical teams to ensure designs meet mechanical keep-outs, height restrictions, and camera module-related I/O requirements.

• Work with the Embedded Firmware and Application Software teams on hardware design reviews and debugging issues.

Qualifications

• You have a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, with a Master’s degree preferred, and 15+ years of experience in electrical hardware development.

• You have a proven track record of developing consumer products from prototype to mass production.

• You must have hands-on experience designing boards with application processors from Qualcomm, MediaTek, or NXP.

• You have extensive experience designing high-speed boards involving MIPI, USB, DisplayPort, sensors, PCIe Gen 3/4, RF (802.11 and Bluetooth), HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, LPDDR 4x/5x, eMMC, UFS, I2S, I2C, and SPI.

• You can work with third-party vendors to guide layout requirements, pre-layout and post-layout signal integrity, and power delivery simulations.

• You have worked with audio and video devices, including microphones, speakers, and CMOS imaging sensors.

• You have design experience that meets compliance requirements such as EMC, ESD, safety, RF, and environmental standards.

• You must have hands-on experience with electrical schematic capture and layout software such as Altium, OrCAD, and Allegro. You must also understand interactions between EE and ME tools and ERP systems like Arena.

• You must have created and influenced system specification documents for electrical, power delivery, thermal, and physical fit requirements.

• You have experience working with offshore OEM, ODM, and JDM, including manufacturing and assembly processes.

• You have experience working in a fast-paced engineering environment, utilizing real-time crisis management skills.

• You possess strong analytical skills, using data-driven decisions to back up assumptions and develop scales of expectation.

• You have strong cross-functional collaboration, written and verbal communication, and presentation skills.

• You can travel domestically and internationally if needed.

At Playground, we’re committed to racial equity, social justice, and equal opportunity. Women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and people with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.