Electrical Engineering - Technical Fellow

Position Title: Electrical Engineering - Technical Fellow
Requisition ID: 1890
Position Location: Fairfax, VA
Position Reports To: Senior Director, Hardware Engineering
Supervises Others: No (technical leadership across matrixed teams)

At Trident Systems Space Electronic Systems (SES) division, we believe in the power of using strong engineering principles to drive innovation and solve complex problems. We foster a culture of rigorous engineering and continuous improvement, leveraging the full knowledge of our organization through collaborative product development processes that include design and peer reviews. We combine our expertise in space electronics with right-sized development processes to create innovative, high-performance space-based electronic systems that meet our customers' evolving needs.

We are a mission partner supporting DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers. We develop complex, radiation effects mitigated, designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.

Position Summary

The Electrical Engineering - Technical Fellow serves as a division-level technical leader within Trident Systems' Space Electronic Systems (SES) division, responsible for architecting, developing, and guiding high-performance space computer and embedded hardware solutions for space and defense applications. This role provides deep, recognized subject matter expertise across the full space hardware development lifecycle, including power systems, internal spacecraft charging, radiation effects, and high-speed signaling-from requirements definition through design, integration, test, delivery, and on-orbit support-while ensuring designs meet stringent performance, reliability, and radiation-mitigation requirements. The Senior Principal Electrical Engineer partners closely with cross-functional engineering teams, executive and program leadership, and customers to solve complex technical challenges, support program execution and business development efforts, and set the long-term technology roadmap and technical strategy for the organization. As the division's senior-most individual-contributor technical authority, the Senior Principal Electrical Engineer holds final design review and sign-off authority on complex, high-risk, or first-of-kind embedded hardware and space computer efforts, and mentors Principal-level engineers across the discipline.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship for discipline engineers, including Principal-level staff
• Subject matter expert for space electronics hardware engineering discipline, including power systems, internal spacecraft charging, radiation effects, and high-speed signaling; serves as final technical review and sign-off authority on complex, high-risk, or first-of-kind designs, ensuring designs meet Trident engineering standards prior to release
• Architect and lead the space computer hardware development process: requirements specification, characterization, simulation, high-speed digital and SerDes design (>10 Gbps), signal and power integrity, power system design, radiation-effects mitigation, signal processing, schematic capture, PCB layout and routing, PCA testing, and system integration
• Set the architecture for high-performance space computers, balancing processing performance, memory, interconnect, power, thermal, SWaP, reliability, and radiation tolerance
• Serve as the cognizant engineer for the power system across the hardware stack - power architecture, radiation-tolerant conversion and regulation, sequencing, protection, power integrity, and spacecraft bus interfaces - guiding design decisions, reviewing analyses and test results, and approving the design at each gate.
• Establish and enforce design practices for internal spacecraft charging mitigation, grounding, and EMI/EMC
• Manage radiation effects analysis and mitigation (TID, SEE, displacement damage), including radiation hardness assurance, parts selection and test strategy, and fault-tolerant design (e.g., EDAC, scrubbing, redundancy)
• Lead high-speed signaling design and analysis: SerDes links (>10 Gbps), channel modeling, signal integrity, jitter budgeting, and protocol implementation
• Chair design and peer reviews of design work and documentation, including PDR, CDR, and TRR milestones
• Provide technical direction to discipline team, other engineering teams, PMO, EGD and VP
• Provide hands-on technical leadership to programs as needed based on severity of resource demand and challenge of design, including design recovery and anomaly investigation
• Lead technical strategy and solution architecture for business development efforts, including proposals and capture
• Represent Trident Systems Engineering with customer, vendor, and industry interface as a recognized subject matter expert
• Define and drive the ES technology roadmap and IRAD investment priorities by identifying goals for department and plans for execution
• Ability to support travel or off-site work, as needed.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or related technical degree
• Demonstrated experience serving as final technical design authority / sign-off for complex or first-of-kind space flight hardware programs
• 15+ years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree OR 13+ years with a Master's degree OR 10+ years with a doctorate, including at least 8 years designing space or aerospace electronics
• Experience with mixed-signal PCA development, utilizing High Density Interconnect (HDI) PCBs and high speed (> 10 GHz) and serial (SerDes) components/circuits operating at >10 Gbps
• Experience with FPGA and microprocessor development, including hardware descriptor languages (i.e. Verilog, VHDL)
• Experience with hardware integration, test, and debug tools such as logic analyzers, scopes, emulators
• Demonstrated experience implementing PCIe, VME, or VPX standards (VITA 46, VITA 65, VITA 78)
• Experience leading formal hardware design review milestones (e.g., PDR, CDR, TRR) for complex or first-of-kind programs
• Demonstrated experience designing and delivering electronic hardware for space flight applications, including at least one design operating on orbit
• Demonstrated experience designing space power systems, including power architecture, radiation-tolerant DC-DC conversion and regulation, sequencing, protection, and power integrity
• Demonstrated experience mitigating internal spacecraft charging and discharge effects, including shielding, grounding, and bonding practices (e.g., NASA-HDBK-4002)
• Demonstrated experience analyzing and mitigating space radiation effects (TID, SEE including SEU/SEL/SET, and displacement damage), including radiation hardness assurance and fault-tolerant architecture (e.g., EDAC, scrubbing, redundancy)
• Demonstrated experience with high-speed serial signaling (SerDes links >10 Gbps; e.g., PCIe, SpaceFibre, high-speed Ethernet), including signal integrity, channel modeling, and jitter budgeting
• Demonstrated experience architecting high-performance space computers or processing systems (processor/FPGA/SoC, memory, interconnect), balancing performance, SWaP, thermal, and reliability
• Experience qualifying hardware designs for extreme environments (TVAC, shock, vibration) and EMI/EMC compliance
• Demonstrated ability to technically lead and mentor senior engineers and to influence customers, executive leadership, and industry

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree or doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field
• Experience with radiation test campaigns (heavy ion, proton, TID) and with COTS/NewSpace parts up-screening for radiation-tolerant architectures
• Experience with on-orbit anomaly investigation and resolution
• Recognized external technical leadership, such as patents, publications, standards or industry working-group participation, or Fellow-level recognition

Pay Information

Full-Time Salary Range: $163,000 - $269,000

Please Note: Actual compensation offered will be determined based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, education, certifications, internal equity, business considerations, and geographic location where applicable.

Benefits

Hired applicants may be eligible for benefits including but not limited to:

• Health benefits
  • Medical
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • Basic life with AD&D
  • Short term disability
  • Long term disability
  • Ancillary (Voluntary life with AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital, and pet)
  • Spending accounts (HSA, FSA, and DCFSA)
• Paid time off
• Holidays
• 401(k) (including company match)
• Tuition reimbursement
• Leaves (Parental, maternity, and military)
• Annual discretionary bonus (for eligible roles)

Trident Systems reserves the right to change or assign other duties to this position.

Trident Solutions is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. To request reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact recruiting@tridsys.com.

Pay Transparency: The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor's legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)