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Metrea · 19 hours ago

Electrical Engineer

Huntsville, AL, US

Full-time

Onsite

Mid Level

Metrea is a defense company dedicated to translating commercial innovation into solutions for the hardest problems in national security. The Electrical Engineer will join a team specializing in military communications and signals intelligence products, focusing on power architecture, propulsion systems, and embedded interfaces among other responsibilities.

AerospaceBusiness IntelligenceCommercialInformation TechnologyMilitarySecurityTrainingTransportation

No H1B

U.S. Citizen Only

Responsibilities

Power architecture: size the battery (chemistry/cell count), design PDBs/DC-DC rails, transient/EMI filtering, pre-charge/soft-start, redundancy/fail-over, and power-up sequencing for flight computers, ESCs, RF payloads, and gimbal

Propulsion & motor-control: select/qualify brushed/BLDC motors and ESCs, set Kv/torque/prop matches, implement/tune FOC/DShot/CAN ESC parameters, and run thrust-stand and efficiency testing

Gimbal & antenna tracking electronics: design the 2–3-axis gimbal drivers (sine/FOC commutation), choose and interface encoders (absolute/incremental), implement tight PID/LQR loops, manage cable wrap/slip ring, and verify pointing accuracy vs. link budget needs

Battery charging & capacity gauging: design fast-charge/balance systems (CC/CV), select/implement fuel-gauge/BMS ICs, SOC/SOH estimation, safety interlocks, thermal monitoring, and charger/ground-support hardware

Embedded interfaces & integration: define and bring-up SPI/I²C/UART/CAN/UAVCAN/RS-485/Ethernet links among sensors, ESCs, BMS, gimbal, and the compute stack (e.g., Jetson Orin); ensure determinism/latency budgets for closed-loop control

Verification, compliance, and DFM/DFT: build HIL rigs (motor dyno/gimbal stim), write test plans, run thermal/vibe/EMI pre-compliance (e.g., DO-160/MIL-STD-810 sections), create manufacturing test fixtures, FMEAs, and release documentation (schematics, BOM, ICDs)

Qualification

Power electronicsMotion control theoryBattery designSensing integrationPCB designEmbedded C/C++PythonTeam collaborationProblem solvingCommunication skills

Required

Employee must be a US citizen

Propulsion & motor-control: select/qualify brushed/BLDC motors and ESCs, set Kv/torque/prop matches, implement/tune FOC/DShot/CAN ESC parameters, and run thrust-stand and efficiency testing

Power electronics & protection: DC-DC (buck/boost/SEPIC), gate-driver/MOSFET selection, current/voltage sensing (shunt/Hall), surge/TVS design, grounding/shielding, and thermal design for 6S–14S Li-ion/LiPo systems

Motion control theory & tuning: PID/LQR/state observers, FOC for BLDC/gimbal motors, jerk-limited trajectories, anti-windup, notch filters, and frequency-response tuning (Bode/Nyquist)

Motors, ESCs & protocols: brushed/BLDC sizing, torque/Kv trade-offs, ESC protocols (PWM/OneShot/DShot/CAN/UAVCAN), gimbal drivers (sinusoidal/FOC), and encoder technologies (magnetic/optical, absolute/incremental)

Batteries & charging: Li-ion/LiPo characteristics, cell balancing (passive/active), SOC/SOH (coulomb counting + Kalman), pack safety (fault detection, contactors, fusing), and charger design/integration

Sensing & RF-aware integration: IMU/gyro/magnetometer/GNSS/RTK bring-up and calibration, time sync (PPS/PTP), low-noise analog design near RF payloads, and EMI/EMC mitigation so tracking electronics don't pollute the antenna front-end

Tools & workflows: PCB design (Altium), simulation (LTspice, MATLAB/Simulink), embedded C/C++ & Python for test, ROS2/PX4 integration, hardware bring-up with scopes/logic analyzers/JTAG, and strong DFM/DFT practices