Infrastructure for the Autonomous Era · First in. First up.
On-site · Austin, TX
---------------------------------------------------
Who We AreFirst Order Effects (FOE) is building America's Infrastructure Prime for the robotic era. Autonomous ships, drones, and robots are rewriting how the world moves, fights, and builds - but none of them work without infrastructure to power them, connect them, and launch and recover them.
Our team comes from SpaceX, Anduril, Saronic, Lockheed Skunk Works, Forterra, and Fuse Energy. Before founding FOE, we built satellite ground stations that closed a national comms gap in days, deployed multi-megawatt power systems at commercial speed, and shipped autonomous surface vessels into Navy fleet production.
Own electrical boards end to end: requirements and system trades, architecture, component selection, schematic capture, PCB layout, bring-up, debug, documentation, production release, and test.
Do your own layout. You'll be placing parts and routing boards, not handing a schematic to someone else. Stackup, impedance control, power planes, thermal reliefs, creepage and clearance, and DFM for our own floor are your call.
Design mixed-signal boards that have to work the first time in salt air, heat, and vibration, and keep working for months without anyone watching: controllers, gate drive, sensing and instrumentation, power supplies, interface and communications boards.
Build the bench and the test fixtures for your boards, bring them up yourself, and write down what you learned so the next rev is better.
Be on the floor when your boards get built and in the field when they get deployed. If one fails, you go find out why.
Work closely with mechanical, thermal, firmware, test, and supply chain so the board fits the enclosure, sheds its heat, gets built repeatably, and uses parts we can actually buy.
Push back on requirements that don't hold up, and change your mind when the data says to.
Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or physics.
5+ years designing circuits, electronic products, or hardware in industry.
You've taken new boards from a blank schematic through production, not incremental revisions of something that already existed, and you can show us the layouts.
Fluent in at least one ECAD tool (we use KiCad; Altium or similar is fine) and able to manage a shared library and release process.
Master's degree in electrical engineering or a related discipline.
Mixed-signal layout experience: processors or FPGAs, Ethernet, high-speed serial, DDR, I2C/SPI, op-amps, ADCs/DACs, and power supply design on the same board.
Power electronics layout: switching converters, gate drive, current sensing, magnetics placement, and managing loop area and parasitics at kilowatt scale.
EMI/EMC-aware design and experience taking boards through environmental or compliance testing.
Experience debugging and testing electronics on a bench and in the field, and the instinct to build the test setup before the problem shows up.
Comfortable in Python and C/C++ for test automation, data analysis, and firmware collaboration.
Experience on defense, aerospace, maritime, or other hardware that has to survive its environment.
$140,000–$220,000 base + equity + benefits.
To conform to U.S. Government export regulations (ITAR/EAR), applicants must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3). Candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance; active clearance not required.
FOE is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with FOE is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.
Sovereignty is built, not declared — come build it with us.
Skills Required
- Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or physics
- 5+ years designing circuits, electronic products, or hardware in industry
- Experience taking new boards from blank schematic through production
- Ability to show completed PCB layouts
- Fluency in an ECAD tool such as KiCad, Altium, or similar
- Ability to manage a shared component library and hardware release process
- Master’s degree in electrical engineering or a related discipline
- Mixed-signal layout experience involving processors or FPGAs, Ethernet, high-speed serial, DDR, I2C/SPI, op-amps, ADCs/DACs, and power supplies
- Power electronics layout experience, including switching converters, gate drive, current sensing, magnetics, loop area, and parasitics
- EMI/EMC-aware design and environmental or compliance testing experience
- Bench and field electronics debugging and testing experience
- Python and C/C++ experience for test automation, data analysis, or firmware collaboration
- Experience with defense, aerospace, maritime, or environmentally rugged hardware
- Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual under applicable ITAR/EAR requirements
- Eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance
What We Do
First Order Effects (FOE) is building infrastructure for the autonomous era, serving the United States and its allies. The company develops and deploys physical systems that power, connect, launch, and recover autonomous ships, drones, and robots. Its work includes MESH Box and SURGE systems and draws on experience in satellite ground stations, power systems, autonomous surface vessels, and defense-oriented engineering.
