Electrical Design Engineer - GSE; Ground Equipment

Position: Electrical Design Engineer - GSE (Ground Support Equipment)
Position Title:

Electrical Design Engineer - GSE (Ground Support Equipment)

Requisition

Position Location:

Sterling, VA

Position

Reports To:

Manger, Space Electronic Systems

Supervises Others:
No

At Trident Systems, we believe that strong engineering principles are fundamental to driving innovation and solving complex problems. We promote a culture characterized by rigorous engineering practices and a commitment to continuous improvement. This is achieved by leveraging our organization's collective expertise through collaborative development processes, which include thorough design and peer reviews. We can deliver innovative, high-performance solutions that meet our customers' evolving requirements by integrating our specialized knowledge in aerospace electronic systems with appropriately scaled development methodologies.

We are a mission partner supporting DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers. We develop complex, radiation effects mitigated, designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.

Position Summary

The Electrical Design Engineer - GSE supports the design, development, and deployment of electrical hardware used in ground support equipment for aerospace electronics and power systems. This role focuses on custom interface boards, mux boards, breakout boards, harness interfaces, instrumentation connectivity, and automation-enabling hardware that helps scale engineering validation and production support.

The ideal candidate understands circuit boards, schematics, electrical interfaces, instrumentation, and practical lab hardware. This role works closely with embedded software, FPGA, electrical, systems, and hardware infrastructure engineers to develop reusable electrical solutions that reduce manual effort, improve test coverage, and support scalable product delivery.

Duties and Responsibilities

* Design custom electrical hardware for GSE, including mux boards, interface boards, breakout boards, adapter boards, harness interface boards, and instrumentation support circuits.

* Develop schematics, PCB layouts, BOMs, assembly documentation, and supporting design files.

* Select components, connectors, relays, switching devices, protection circuits, power components, and instrumentation interfaces.

* Support board bring-up, debug, validation, rework, and troubleshooting.

* Develop electrical solutions that support automated testing, scalable validation, and production support workflows.

* Work with software and automation engineers to ensure GSE hardware can be controlled, monitored, and reused efficiently.

* Support integration of DAQs, power supplies, electronic loads, DMMs, oscilloscopes, switching systems, and custom electronics.

* Troubleshoot issues involving signal routing, grounding, power distribution, protection, noise, EMI/EMC, connectorization, and harness interfaces.

* Maintain design documentation, BOMs, configuration records, wiring/interface documentation, and release packages.

* Partner with product electrical engineers to understand board-level interfaces and avoid damaging flight or engineering hardware.

* Support off-site integration activities or travel, as needed.

* Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

* Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical discipline, or equivalent practical engineering experience, and 4+ years of related experience

* Experience designing, developing, or supporting electrical hardware, PCB assemblies, test hardware, GSE, lab systems, or automation-supporting electronics.

* Experience with schematic capture, PCB layout, board bring-up, and electrical troubleshooting.

* Familiarity with digital and analog circuit design, signal routing, power distribution, protection circuitry, and connector/interface design.

* Experience developing BOMs, drawings, assembly documentation, and configuration-controlled electrical design documentation.

* Experience using lab instrumentation including oscilloscopes, DMMs, DAQs, power supplies, loads, and signal generators.

* Ability to debug electrical issues at the board, harness, instrumentation, and system level.

* Strong organizational, communication, and documentation skills.

Preferred Qualifications

* Experience in aerospace, defense, industrial automation, robotics, or high-reliability electronics environments.

* Experience designing mux boards, relay boards, load boards, breakout boards, adapter cards, or automated test interface hardware.

* Familiarity with embedded interfaces including UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, Ethernet, GPIO, ADC/DAC, LVDS, RS-422, or RS-485.

* Experience with Altium, KiCad, OrCAD, Eagle, or similar ECAD tools.

* Familiarity with Python-controlled instruments, SCPI, VISA, DAQs, or automated test systems.

* Knowledge of ESD, grounding, shielding, EMI/EMC, and safe lab practices.

* Experience supporting production test, validation, or scalable engineering…