Beam Instrumentation Engineer; R&D Engineer

What You Will Do

The Accelerator Operations and Technology (AOT) Division leans on the Laboratory’s core capability of accelerators and electrodynamics, enabling charged particle acceleration through controlled utilization of electromagnetic fields. The Instrumentation and Controls Group (AOT‑IC) seeks a motivated R&D Engineer to support advanced diagnostics for the LANSCE accelerator. Responsibilities include specification, design, modeling, implementation, verification, and testing of electrical circuits or FPGAs. You will modify, upgrade, and maintain existing beam diagnostic instrumentation, evaluate legacy control systems, improve architectures, support system integration, prepare technical documentation, participate in design reviews, coordinate multidisciplinary teams, and oversee installation, testing, and commissioning.

You will communicate effectively, work independently, assume responsibility for projects, and work odd hours with 24‑hour on‑call support of AOT‑IC accelerator hardware.

• Analyzing high‑bandwidth, low signal‑to‑noise signals to extract beam parameters.
• Supporting development and deployment of real‑time processing solutions on FPGA and embedded platforms.
• Participating in the design, commissioning, and troubleshooting of instrumentation and controls systems.
• Collaborating with accelerator physicists, RF engineers, mechanical engineers, and electrical engineers to improve diagnostic performance and system reliability.
• Ensuring compliance with laboratory safety, cybersecurity, and quality assurance requirements.
• Assuming 24‑hour, on‑call support of AOT‑IC diagnostics on a rotating basis.

• Leading design upgrades to existing beam diagnostics to enhance capability and reliability.
• Developing and implementing digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms for accelerator instrumentation.
• Designing signal processing workflows integrated with control system architectures (e.g., EPICS‑based systems).
• Leading beam instrumentation capability thrusts, aligning LANSCE with the state of the art in the accelerator community.

• Demonstrated experience with advanced design & analysis tools, such as schematic capture tools, analog or digital simulation tools, and signal integrity analysis tools.
• Demonstrated knowledge of digital signal processing, including filtering, spectral analysis, and time‑domain techniques.
• Demonstrated experience debugging & troubleshooting complex hardware systems.
• Demonstrated design experience in one or more of the following electrical engineering focus areas:
• Digital Design: synchronous design, synthesis, routing, simulation, testing, documentation of FPGA or other digital circuits; VHDL or Verilog; embedded systems using real‑time operating systems; high‑speed digital interface logic such as CMOS, LVDS and CML.
• Analog Design: fundamentals of analog components; signal conditioning of electronic sensors.
• Radio Frequency Design: impedance matching and S‑parameter analysis; RF circuit design and analysis; RF power measurement and calibration; phase‑noise and jitter analysis.

• Thorough knowledge of high‑speed data acquisition and real‑time systems.
• Thorough knowledge of configuration management and formal verification methods.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and mentor technical staff and manage technical projects or teams.

• R&D Engineer 2:
  Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from an accredited institution and 4 years of related experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience directly related to the occupation.
• R&D Engineer 3:
  Master’s Degree in Engineering from an accredited institution and 6 years of related experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience directly related to the occupation. A Ph.D. may be preferred.

• Experience using electromagnetic simulation software (e.g., CST Studio Suite).
• Experience with accelerator instrumentation, controls, or similar large‑scale scientific systems.
• Knowledge of the fundamentals of accelerator physics.
• Exp…