Senior Electrical Engineer

Powerus is building a next-generation American autonomous systems platform designed to move, protect, and sustain critical assets in high-consequence environments. The company combines advanced autonomy, manufacturing capability, operational expertise, and strategic acquisitions to support defense, national security, critical infrastructure, and commercial operations globally.

Our mission is to deliver resilient autonomous technologies that strengthen national security, improve operational safety, and expand the capabilities of organizations operating in complex environments.

There is a point where a company stops needing more hands and starts needing someone who has already made the expensive mistakes. Powerus is  platforms work; the question now is whether the electrical architecture holds up at production volume, across temperature, through vibration, and under an auditor's eye.

This role carries that. You will set electrical direction rather than execute against someone else's, own the decisions that are hard to reverse later, and raise the level of the engineers around you - through review, through standards, and through being the person who catches the thing nobody else caught.

Powerus is hiring a Senior Electrical Engineer to take ownership of electrical design across our unmanned platforms. You will lead architecture and design decisions spanning power, avionics, sensing, and interconnect; run design reviews; and set the practices the rest of the team designs against. You will stay hands-on - this is not a management track - but your scope includes the choices that determine whether a design survives production, qualification, and the field.

You will work closely with mechanical, software, manufacturing, and test engineering, and with vendors on both sides of the build.

• Own electrical architecture and design decisions across vehicle power, avionics, and interconnect
• Lead design reviews and hold the technical bar on schematics, layouts, and interface definitions
• Define and maintain electrical design standards, derating practice, and component approval process
• Drive worst-case, thermal, and margin analysis on the designs that carry the most risk
• Lead root cause investigation on the failures that resist easy explanation
• Guide design for manufacturability, testability, and qualification alongside manufacturing and test engineering
• Direct component selection strategy including obsolescence, second sourcing, and NDAA and Blue UAS constraints
• Work with fabrication, assembly, and supply partners on process, yield, and qualification questions
• Mentor engineers through review, pairing, and written guidance rather than by assignment alone
• Support qualification, environmental, and EMC campaigns and close the findings that come out of them

• Must be located in the United States, within commuting distance of Charlotte, NC, and able to work on-site
• Degree in electrical engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• Substantial professional experience designing electronic hardware that shipped in a physical product
• Depth in at least one of power electronics, avionics, embedded hardware, or signal integrity, with working breadth across the rest
• Track record of owning designs end to end - architecture through production - including the failures
• Experience leading design reviews and setting technical direction for other engineers
• U.S. Person status required (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual under 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)); this role involves access to ITAR- and EAR-controlled technical data

• Experience in UAV, aerospace, defense, automotive, or another regulated or safety-relevant hardware domain
• Exposure to environmental qualification, EMC compliance, or DO-160 style testing
• Experience with high-reliability design practice, derating, and margin analysis
• Familiarity with production ramp, yield improvement, and manufacturing process feedback
• Experience defining electrical standards or component approval processes at an organization
• Background contributing to hardware in a rapidly scaling engineering team

We are looking for judgment. The people who do well in this seat have seen a design fail in a way that was avoidable, remember exactly why, and have changed how they work because of it. You should be willing to be the dissenting voice in a review, comfortable explaining a decision to someone who disagrees, and more interested in the team's designs being right than in your own being clever.

Powerus is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and mission-driven workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.