Electrical Engineer

Our client, an autonomous vehicle company, is looking for someone to join their team as an Electrical Engineer. This role is hybrid in Foster City, CA!

This is a W2 contract budgeted until March 5, 2027

In this role, you'll serve as the technical expert for troubleshooting, validating, and resolving networking issues at both the hardware and protocol levels. You'll investigate issues occurring in deployed systems, recreate them in a lab environment, identify root causes, and partner with engineering teams to develop long-term solutions that improve network reliability and performance.

• Troubleshoot and resolve complex networking issues across deployed systems.
• Triage active field issues and lead root cause investigations.
• Develop lab methods to reproduce real-world networking failures.
• Validate hardware and protocol-level network performance.
• Collaborate with fleet support engineers to track issues and manage containment strategies.
• Partner with hardware design teams to recommend and implement long-term design improvements.
• Utilize advanced diagnostic equipment to analyze hardware behavior and network performance.
• Contribute to process improvements that enhance system reliability and debugging efficiency.

Required Skills & Experience

• 4+ years of relevant experience as a network hardware engineer, test engineer, or systems validation engineer with a strong focus on physical layer and protocol debugging.
• Deep, hands-on expertise in validating, troubleshooting, and debugging 1G-baseT and 1G-baseT1 (Automotive Ethernet) networks.
• Strong proficiency with Precision Time Protocol (PTP / IEEE 1588), including network synchronization troubleshooting, hardware time stamping, and timing analysis.
• Proven ability to systematically triage complex field issues, develop novel lab reproduction methods, and drive end-to-end root-cause investigations.
• Extensive experience utilizing advanced diagnostic tools (e.g., oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, network traffic generators) to evaluate hardware performance and formulate actionable solutions for design teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills, with a track record of effectively partnering with fleet support operations and hardware design teams.
• Experience with scripting languages (such as Python or Bash) to automate network testing, parse fleet logs, and control lab equipment.
• Familiarity with higher-layer network protocols (TCP/IP, UDP) and experience configuring or debugging network switches and routers.