Senior Electrical Engineer

Overview

The Senior Electrical Engineer plays a pivotal role in turning the Next-generation Global Observing Network Group (ngGONG) vision into a reliable, operational observatory. As the technical authority for electrical and electronic systems, this role ensures that power, controls, and safety architectures are designed holistically—supporting everything from site infrastructure to precision instrumentation. The decisions made in this position directly impact system reliability, data quality, personnel safety, and long-term maintainability across all ngGONG sites.

By providing senior technical leadership and coordinating across disciplines, the Sr EE enables complex systems to function as an integrated whole while balancing performance, cost, schedule, and risk. This role is essential to delivering a robust, scalable telescope design that can operate continuously in remote environments and support cutting-edge solar science for decades to come.

The ngGONG project is currently funded for a three-year design phase, with the potential for additional funding contingent upon selection to advance into construction.

This position is based in Boulder, Colorado, on the University of Colorado campus.

• Develop and maintain a thorough understanding of ngGONG scientific requirements, system specifications, design standards, and interface requirements, and translate them into appropriate electrical and electronic system architectures.
• Lead electrical and electronic engineering design activities for major ngGONG systems from concept development through final design, including power distribution, controls, instrumentation, detector electronics, safety, and observatory support systems.
• Define and maintain ngGONG’s electrical and electronic system architecture, covering site utility interfaces, power distribution, grounding and bonding, lightning protection, facility power, rack distribution, and observatory subsystems.
• Develop system architectures for electrical power distribution, UPS and backup power, power conditioning and quality, controls, instrumentation, and electronics consistent with performance, reliability, safety, and availability requirements.
• Define and oversee UPS, power conditioning, and power quality strategies for telescopes, instruments, critical IT/electronics, and infrastructure, including ride-through, redundancy, and monitoring requirements.
• Lead or contribute to the design of control, servo, and PLC-based systems, including definition of control strategies, drive and I/O architectures, and interfaces to motion control, telescope, and instrument subsystems.
• Lead the design and standardization of electronic racks and enclosures for ngGONG, including power distribution, safety interlocks, grounding and shielding practices, cable management, environmental monitoring, and serviceability.
• Perform and oversee engineering analyses and simulations to verify system performance, reliability, power quality, and compliance with requirements and applicable codes/standards.
• Identify technical risks, design tradeoffs, and opportunities for innovation to improve performance, constructability, maintainability, and lifecycle cost of electrical and electronics systems.
• Initiate and guide engineering studies, simulations, and technology evaluations (e.g., UPS topologies, drive/control platforms, detector electronics options) to support major design decisions.
• Solve complex electrical and electronic engineering problems that may extend beyond established practices or prior observatory designs, including multi-site and international constraints.
• Manage assigned electrical/electronic design work packages, including scope definition, schedule coordination, cost and resource input, and delivery of technical documentation and design artifacts.
• Coordinate electrical and electronic interfaces with mechanical, optical, thermal, software, civil, and facilities engineering disciplines, as well as with international site owners and utilities, to ensure coherent and constructible solutions.
• Define electrical and electronics requirements for buildings, site utilities, and SBF (Site–Buildings–Fitout) work packages,…