About the role
About Us
Harmattan AI is a next-generation defense prime building autonomous and scalable defense systems. Following the close of a $200M Series B, valuing the company at $1.4 billion, we are expanding our teams and capabilities to deliver mission-critical systems to allied forces.
Our work is guided by clear values: building technologies with real-world impact, pursuing excellence in everything we do, setting ambitious goals, and taking on the hardest technical challenges. We operate in a demanding environment where rigor, ownership, and execution are expected.
About the Role
Power electronics are the bottleneck on every next-generation UAS airframe we build: motor controllers, gate drivers, and DC-DC stages are what define flight time, payload, thermal envelope, and field reliability. We're looking for a senior IC to own the analog power chain end-to-end across our UXV platforms: from MOSFET commutation simulation through PCB layout to lab validation. You will be the technical reference on power electronics inside our Lausanne engineering hub, unblocking propulsion, airframe, and embedded teams in parallel as we scale from prototype cadence to multi-platform deployment.
This is a builder role, not a research seat. You ship hardware.
Responsibilities
- Power Stage Architecture: Lead motor-controller and DC-DC topology across fixed-wing, multicopter, and hybrid UXV platforms. Translate mission constraints into power-chain specification.
- MOSFET Commutation & Gate-Drive Design: Own the analog switching design: dead-time tuning, gate shaping, switching-loss vs EMI vs thermal trade-offs.
- Multi-fidelity Simulation: Deploy the full stack: analytical loss budgeting, transient SPICE (LTspice), system-level modelling in PLECS or Simulink.
- BLDC Drive Stages: Design three-phase inverters with integrated current sensing, protection, Trapezoidal and FOC-aware hardware interfaces.
- High-Power-Density PCBA: Lead schematic and layout in Altium or KiCad with thermal, parasitics, and EMC engineered in from the first revision.
- EMI / EMC Engineering: Drive pre-compliance, filter design, and root-cause debug under flight-representative loads.
- Prototype-to-Production: Take motor-controller PCBAs through revision discipline, DFM, and qualification - closing the loop on field returns.
- Lab Validation: Execute bench characterization (power analysers, oscilloscopes, thermal imaging, double-pulse testing) and reconcile against simulation.
- Firmware & Controls Interface: Partner with embedded and propulsion on FOC tuning, current-sense calibration, and the hardware/firmware compensation boundary.
- Design Authority & Mentorship: Set the bar via design-decision records and reference designs. Mentor 1–2 junior engineers.
Candidate Requirements
- MSc or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Power Electronics, or equivalent.
- 5+ years of hands-on R&D experience on motor drives, BLDC/PMSM controllers, or high-power-density power electronics.
- Deep working mastery of MOSFET commutation design: gate-driver selection, dead-time tuning, switching transitions, loss budgets.
- Proven ownership of at least one motor-controller PCBA shipped from prototype through production (or pre-production qualification): ideally on drone, robotics, eVTOL, or automotive platforms.
- Fluency in simulation (LTspice, PLECS, or Simulink) and PCB design (Altium).
- Strong, hard-earned intuition for EMI / EMC design and debug.
- Lab-bench discipline: you've personally debugged what simulation missed.
- Comfort with scale-up iteration speed and end-to-end ownership.
- English fluent (working language); French is a nice-to-have, not a requirement.
Bonus points for: GaN / SiC experience, safety-critical design exposure , applied control theory implemented in hardware, exposure to defense, aerospace, or UAS programmes.
We look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of autonomous defense systems at Harmattan AI.