Power Electronics Engineer

Who We Are:

We are driven by a passion to design and manufacture the highest quality grid-scale power converters available. Rooted in this passion, we provide our customers with inverters and DC/DC converters from 100 kW to 6 MW. EPC’s products are designed in house and manufactured in the USA. Power electronics are the core technology behind decarbonization. With major growth sectors such as renewable energy, energy storage, and electric vehicle charging, EPC is growing fast.

EPC is headquartered in Poway, CA, a community in Northern San Diego County, with additional manufacturing facilities in Greenville, SC and additional design offices in Raleigh, NC and Helsinki, Finland.

What We Do:

The R&D team is focused on developing robust and reliable power conversion solutions to real-world customer problems, and doing it in a smaller, more powerful footprint than anything else available today. We enjoy what we do, and we encourage a creative, healthy, and highly collaborative environment. Our goal is to work together as a fun, creative, and professional team; learning from and encouraging one-another as we push the state of the art forward in power electronics.

The Role:

EPC Power is looking to add a Power Electronics Engineer to our team. In this role you will be a key member of our engineering team contributing to the development of megawatt class inverters, active front end, DC/DC, and STATCOMs for commercial and industrial applications. You will play a key role in the development of power electronics for new products, maintain and improve current products, troubleshoot challenging hardware issues, and mentor junior engineers. This includes power device selection, detailed circuit design (schematic capture), magnetics design, vendor/component selection and relationship building, design evaluation and testing, modeling and simulation, and many other technical activities. Management and execution of your responsibilities will be instrumental in the continued success of EPC Power.

Responsibilities:

• Work with development team to design inverters and converters for commercial and industrial applications
• Design, develop, and test detailed circuits including gate drivers, active clamps, high voltage measurement circuits, grounding systems, insulation systems, etc.
• Design high power magnetic components including three-phase filter inductors, chokes, and power transformers
• Evaluate architectures and topologies considering numerous performance metrics including electrical, thermal, cost, manufacturability, and commercial viability
• Mentor junior engineers and guide multi-disciplinary teams to select components and apply best practices
• Lead and execute design validation testing in lab, review and interpret test results
• Maintain understanding of modern power electronic topologies and architectures and their commercial and industrial applications
• Maintain understanding of current switch technologies, development, and commercial viability such as new SiC mosfets from manufacturers
• Develop models and simulations to evaluate topology performance
• Review customer specifications and develop design to ensure system and equipment meets all performance requirements
• Collaborate throughout the organization with engineers, quality assurance, manufacturing, and part vendors
• Provide technical support to service team tackling customer field issues
• Be customer facing technical point of contact for development and execution of projects
• Participate in documentation for manuals, processes, ECOs, and procedures
• Occasional travel may be required (<10%)

Qualifications

• B.Sc., M.Sc. in Engineering, Physics, or similar technical field
• 10 years experience developing power electronic products
• Broad knowledge of Power Electronics
• Experience designing MW class inverter, converters, motor drives, or similar
• Experience with typical commercial and industrial electrical power (480Vac, 3ph)
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Ability to work well within a team and clearly communicate technical progress and challenges
• Proficient in the design of circuits and schematic capture
• Able to lead conceptual design, prototype testing, and coordinate setup for volume production
• Must be able to communicate proficiently in English
• Must be willing to relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina within 2 months of signing a job acceptance letter. Eligible for domestic relocation assistance.

Desired Skills

• Experience designing and using >1200V/1000A class IGBT’s from manufacturers such as Semikron, Infineon, and Mitsubishi
• Experience designing, building, and testing gate drivers and protection circuits for Si IGBT, SiC MOSFETs
• In-depth knowledge of IGBT and MOSFET design, fabrication, and impacts on performance, lifetime
• PCB circuit design and board layout experience for voltages > 500 V strongly desired
• Experience with Altium, AutoCAD Electrical
• Knowledge of typical standards for design of commercial and industrial electrical equipment [IEEE1547, UL1741, …]
• Knowledge of special functions needed for solar, battery energy storage applications, grid support functions
• Familiar with three phase power systems, fusing, fault protection coordination
• Knowledge of grounding systems and insulation systems for lighting strike, line faults, battery faults
• Experience maintaining and improving company electrical drawing standards
• Experience making challenging power electronics measurements such switching loss, gate drive signals while running, common mode voltage/currents, ...
• Familiar with typical commercial and industrial cabinet wiring, documentation, wiring harnesses
• Experience with NI/Labview, Python, MatLab/Simulink, and/or C programming
• Matlab/Simulink, Plecs, Typhoon HIL, C, Python, NI/Labview and/or CPLD/FPGA programming experience
• PCB fabrication, contract manufacturing, testing high voltage design, spacing, isolation circuits
• Industrial/commercial PCB design principles and standards including isolation calculations, creepage / clearance, UL standards, IPC standards, trace resistance and heating, trace width calculations
• Typical PCB component design/layout such as microprocessor, peripherals, power supplies, signal condition, analog circuits, communication protocols, high speed differential signaling, such as LVDS, and impedance controlled layouts, layout for high noise environments
• Soldering and PCB rework skills
• Hands on lab skills, prototyping, testing, cable harness fabrication, lab testing, board bringup

Benefits:

• 401(k) matching
• Dental and vision insurance
• Disability insurance
• Employee assistance program
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Tuition reimbursement

Salary:

135,000 - 150,000