Senior Hardware Design Engineer; NPD and VAVE

Position: Senior Hardware Design Engineer (NPD and VAVE)
About

Job Role
We are seeking a hands-on NPD & VAVE Electrical Engineer, with 7-10 years of experience, to develop new products and implement value-engineering, redesign, and lifecycle improvements across both industrial AC power and motor-control systems and embedded controller electronics used in Potter Fire Safety & Suppression and nitrogen-generation products.
The role covers 1-phase and 3-phase compressor motors, motor starters and drives, protection devices, solenoid valves, control-panel wiring, and harnesses, as well as controller PCB architecture, power supplies, sensing, I/O, communications, and user interfaces.
The candidate must be able to translate requirements into complete electrical designs, dissect existing circuits and wiring systems, develop prototypes, perform board and system bring-up, complete verification, and support controlled production release.
Demonstrated hands-on contribution to both NPD and implemented VAVE or cost-reduction programs is required; this is not a costing-only, teardown-only, or documentation-only role.

Key Responsibilities
1. Value Engineering & Cost-Down Execution
Perform electrical teardown, functional analysis, circuit dissection, BOM analysis, and competitive benchmarking, and translate findings into NPD requirements and redesign opportunities.
Identify opportunities for component commonization, alternate components, circuit simplification, wiring reduction, platform reuse, regional configuration, target-cost achievement, and variant rationalization across new and existing products.
Develop VAVE concepts into complete electrical designs, prototypes, BOM updates, and release ready engineering changes, while applying design-to-cost principles during NPD.
Quantify target cost, performance, safety, reliability, compliance, schedule, and implementation trade-offs before recommending a new architecture or design change.
2. AC Power, Motors, Drives & Industrial Controls
Develop and redesign 230/240 VAC 1-phase and 3-phase systems at 50

Hz/60

Hz; support 415/460/480 VAC systems where applicable.
Select, size, and validate AC motors and compressor-motor packages from small fractional horse power units through approximately 7.5HP for new and modified products.
Design and evaluate motor starters, contractors, overload relays, circuit breakers, fuse banks, phase protection, control transformers, and motor drives, soft starters, or VFDs where applicable.
Create and troubleshoot control panels, wiring diagrams, terminal blocks, protective earth, harnesses, interlocks, pressure switches, relays, indicators, and emergency or fault circuits.
Integrate and validate solenoid valves, compressor unloaders, electromechanical actuators, sensors, switches, and other line-voltage or low-voltage controlled devices.
Verify motor starting and inrush, phase sequence and rotation, steady-state current, power, thermal behaviour, overload protection, fault response, functional sequence, and safe isolation.
3. Embedded Hardware Design & Redesign
Develop and redesign microcontroller-based controller hardware, including analog, digital, and mixed-signal circuits, for both new products and existing-platform improvements.
Design AC-DC, DC-DC, and LDO power sections; pressure, current, and temperature sensing interfaces; relay, contactor, and solenoid drivers; dry-contact outputs; and protection circuits.
Develop or modify interfaces such as SPI, I2C, UART, RS-485, CAN, Ethernet, USB, display/keypad connections, and DIP-switch or configuration inputs as applicable.
Own hardware requirements, schematic capture, component selection and derating, PCB layout guidance or review, board bring-up, debugging, verification, and engineering release.
Design for EMC, ESD, surge, EFT, transients, creepage, clearance, grounding, isolation, signal integrity, electrical safety, and robust industrial operation.
Drive reusable circuit blocks, common controller hardware, and configuration-based differentiation across models and regional variants wherever technically feasible.
4. Cross-Functional Collaboration & Implementation
Own electrical work packages on assigned NPD, redesign, sustenance, and VAVE programs while working closely with the Senior Mechatronics Engineer, Mechanical, Firmware, Validation, and Potter US stakeholders.
Define hardware-firmware and electrical-mechanical interfaces and coordinate changes required by new sensors, controller components, motor controls, valves, displays, or communications.
Support prototype builds, supplier…