Senior Electrical Engineer; Speed Digital

Company Overview

Second Order Effects started in 2016 as a services firm, taking on other companies’ hardest engineering problems from first principles. We grew into a solutions firm that designs and ships complete custom electronics and systems, including power electronics, RF, and control systems. We’ve completed over 250 projects for more than 100 clients. Our designs control rocket engines, manage satellite communications, instrument fusion reactors, and are enjoyed by consumers around the world.

We approach problems from first principles. We break challenges down to their most fundamental components, which is how we find solutions that hold up across industries, use cases, and engineering functions. We focus on solving the right problems and building the teams to take them on. Because we believe that training and empowering others yields a greater impact than focusing on developing any specific technology, we expect every single member of our team to participate in building up those around them.

In the past year, we’ve started taking our own concepts and spinning them out into separate companies that we believe will meet the emerging needs of our clients and the industry  work is concentrating in frontier technology, including space, fusion and fission energy, and advanced vehicles. We currently have two spinout companies in stealth that we’re working on.

Information about our mission, vision, and values can be found here.

Examples of the projects we have worked on can be found here.

We are looking for a High Speed Digital Electrical Engineer to work across client programs that demand hardware performing at the edge of what is commercially possible. This is a hands‑on design role. You will own high‑speed digital PCB design, signal integrity, and FPGA development across a range of programs – from space avionics and optical communication systems to power electronics and embedded computing platforms.

No two programs are identical, and you will bring the same first–principles rigor to each one. You will work alongside engineers who have shipped flight hardware and know what it takes to close a design in a real program environment. You will have direct client exposure, ownership over your technical deliverables, and access to programs that rarely show up at larger firms.

As SOE grows our incubation model, high‑speed digital engineering sits at the center of the most technically demanding programs we take on. This role is a direct line into that work.

• Support high speed electrical architecture from concept generation through investigation including key trades, requirement definition, investigations and component selection.
• Own signal integrity from component selection and schematic capture through layout and post‑route simulation: impedance control, differential pair routing, crosstalk analysis, and eye diagram verification.
• Work with power electronics engineers to inform and design power delivery networks for high‑performance ASICs, FPGAs, and multi‑channel memory; close power budgets from system architecture through regulator selection and decoupling strategy.
• Develop and execute high‑speed board bring‑up: BERT testing, TDR characterization, eye mask compliance, and EMC pre‑compliance.
• Design in Altium; produce layout‑ready packages with full design rule documentation for contract manufacturing.

• Incorporate environmental requirements across programs: radiation tolerance, thermal cycling, vibration, shock, and vacuum out gassing where applicable.
• Select and qualify components for space‑grade or radiation‑tolerant operation; manage parts lists and evaluate COTS mitigation strategies.
• Select and implement best design practices that minimize the down‑stream risk of test failures from EMI/EMC. Familiar with industry standards such as STD‑461, DO‑160, and MIL‑STD‑461.
• Author and maintain design specifications, interface control documents, and test procedures at the level demanding programs require.

• Work directly with clients to translate system requirements into board‑level hardware…