Principal Instrument Electronics Engineer
Location: Oxford
Permanent
Oxford Nanopore Technologies: Our goal is to bring the widest benefits to society through enabling the analysis of anything, by anyone, anywhere.
The company has developed a new generation of nanopore-based sensing technology for faster, information rich, accessible and affordable molecular analysis.
The first application is DNA/RNA sequencing, and the technology is in development for the analysis of other types of molecules including proteins.
The technology is used to understand and characterise the biology of humans and diseases such as cancer, plants, animals, bacteria, viruses, and whole environments.
With a thriving culture of ambition and strong innovation goals, Oxford Nanopore is a UK headquartered company with global operations and customers in more than 125 countries.
We are seeking an experienced and highly capable Principal Electronics Engineer to play a key role in the architecture, design and delivery of advanced electronics for cutting-edge scientific instrumentation.
This is a senior, hands-on technical leadership role where you will take ownership of complex board-level and subsystem design, working across analogue, digital and mixed-signal electronics. You will be involved from early concept through to integration, verification and product release, ensuring high standards of engineering excellence throughout.
This is an opportunity to shape technical direction, influence engineering standards and mentor others within a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment.
Responsibilities:
You will lead the development of electronics for sophisticated instrumentation, working closely with teams across software, mechanical engineering, manufacturing and quality.
- Leading the architecture, design and delivery of analogue, digital and mixed-signal electronics
- Owning development from concept through prototype, verification and release into manufacture
- Defining system architecture, partitioning and interfaces across multidisciplinary teams
- Driving robust engineering practices including design for manufacture and test
- Leading schematic design, guiding PCB layout and making key component and architecture decisions
- Planning and leading bring-up, debugging, verification and root-cause analysis activities
- Supporting transfer to manufacture and resolving production or compliance challenges
- Producing and reviewing technical documentation within a controlled development environment
- Mentoring engineers and contributing to best practice, standards and continuous improvement
Requirements:
You will be an experienced electronics engineer with a strong track record of delivering complex hardware systems.
We are particularly interested in candidates with:
- A degree in Electrical or Electronics Engineering (or related discipline)
- Significant industry experience (typically 10+ years) across full product lifecycles
- Proven expertise in analogue, digital and mixed-signal electronics design
- Strong board-level design experience, including schematic capture and PCB layout
- Experience developing complex PCB-based systems for instrumentation, embedded platforms or similar products
- A structured approach to debugging, verification and hardware characterisation
- Experience working in regulated or quality-managed environments
- The ability to lead technical decisions and influence across multidisciplinary teams
- Experience with embedded systems and FPGA-based designs is important
- Hands-on experience in firmware or FPGA development considered advantageous.
We offer outstanding benefits to include an attractive bonus, generous pension contributions, private healthcare and an excellent starting salary.
If you are looking to utilise your skills to really make a difference to humankind, then consider joining our team and apply today!
Please note that no terminology in this advert is intended to discriminate on the grounds of a person's gender, marital status, race, religion, colour, age, disability or sexual orientation. Every candidate will be assessed only in accordance with their merits, qualifications and abilities to perform the duties of the job.
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About UsOxford Nanopore Technologies: Our goal is to bring the widest benefits to society through enabling the analysis of anything, by anyone, anywhere. The company has developed a new generation of nanopore-based sensing technology for faster, information rich, accessible and affordable molecular analysis. The first application is DNA/RNA sequencing, and the technology is in development for the analysis of other types of molecules including proteins. The technology is used to understand and characterise the biology of humans and diseases such as cancer, plants, animals, bacteria, viruses, and whole environments. With a thriving culture of ambition and strong innovation goals, Oxford Nanopore is a UK headquartered company with global operations and customers in more than 125 countries.
Skills Required
- A degree in Electrical or Electronics Engineering or related discipline
- Significant industry experience (typically 10+ years) across full product lifecycles
- Proven expertise in analogue, digital and mixed-signal electronics design
- Strong board-level design experience including schematic capture and PCB layout
- Experience developing complex PCB-based systems for instrumentation or embedded platforms
- A structured approach to debugging, verification and hardware characterisation
- Experience working in regulated or quality-managed environments
- Ability to lead technical decisions and influence across teams
- Experience with embedded systems and FPGA-based designs
- Hands-on experience in firmware or FPGA development
Oxford Nanopore Technologies Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Oxford Nanopore Technologies and has not been reviewed or approved by Oxford Nanopore Technologies.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered good to above average across many roles, with employer-provided ranges visible for several U.S. commercial and applications positions and company materials emphasizing market‑competitive base pay. Commercial and some senior technical posts, particularly in the U.S., are positioned as competitive and often paired with strong variable components.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — All‑employee share plans in the UK and a U.S. employee stock purchase plan indicate broad access to equity as part of total reward. Company communications highlight attractive bonus and share plans that add meaningful upside beyond base pay.
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Healthcare Strength — U.S. roles indicate strong health insurance and core protections, while official materials and country overviews reference private medical coverage and wellbeing support. These elements position the health package as a notable strength alongside cash compensation.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies Insights
What We Do
Our goal is to enable the analysis of anything, anywhere, by anyone. We have developed the world’s first and only nanopore DNA and RNA sequencing platform. It’s a new generation of sequencing technology — the only one to offer: scalability to portable or ultra-high throughput formats, real-time data delivery, and the ability to elucidate rich biological data. We are aiming to disrupt the way that biological analyses are currently performed, and open up new applications that have a profound, positive impact on society. Our devices offer real-time analysis, for rapid insights, in fully scalable formats — from pocket to population scale — and the technology is being used in more than 100 countries worldwide. Founded in 2005 as a spin-out from the University of Oxford, the company now employs more than 600 people from multiple disciplines including nanopore science, molecular biology and applications, informatics, engineering, electronics, manufacturing and commercialisation. The management team, led by CEO Dr Gordon Sanghera, has a track record of delivering disruptive technologies to the market.
