About Us
At Dimer Instruments we’re creating the next generation of laboratory and process analytical tools for the pharmaceutical market. Our products use multiple light-based spectroscopic methods to interrogate solutions containing molecules and particles, providing researchers not just with data but with organized information allowing them to make informed decisions, and providing automated Process systems with the feedback required for Quality by Design. At Dimer you’ll be working with a high-quality, high-performing, highly collaborative, and enjoyable team of Engineers and Scientists to create products that make a difference in the world. We have fun while we’re creating great products.
Summary
The successful Staff Electrical Engineer will be a great and imaginative Electrical designer, able to quickly understand big picture needs and to generate elegant, practical, cost effective, and manufacturable solutions. They will be expert at hybrid analog and digital designs, able to generate laser drive circuits with safeties, high current PWM circuits to drive TEM modules, transimpedance amplifier (TIA) circuits to convert pA currents from photodiodes into measurable voltages, deal with uV noise level analog signals (typically at ~1 Hz bandwidth), communicate with many I2C devices, etc., etc. Where they have knowledge gaps they will be able to reach out to external experts to collaboratively create best in class designs. They will be the lead (and for a time the sole) EE on staff at Dimer Instruments, and they will be responsible for establishing best practices for design rules and processes, e.g. organization of component libraries, lifecycle and revision control of PCBAs, etc. They will be comfortable quickly prototyping individual modules to risk reduce designs, and will also be comfortable performing analysis to be able to predict performance, e.g. the expected noise floor of a TIA circuit. Dimer Instruments will make make heavy use of built-in self-test for instruments to be able to check their health upon startup and during operation, and to raise alarms when a system is performing sub-optimally, and the successful Staff Electrical Engineer will be able to contribute to DFMEA analysis and design self-tests that identify failures when they occur (and even better identify if a failure is about to occur).
The Staff Electrical Engineer will be supporting, and being supported by, physicists, mechanical engineers, chemists, programmers, and product owners in a collaborative environment. They will think outside the box and will occasionally truly surprise their colleagues with a zinger of solution that no one (else) saw coming. They will know the importance of clearly defined and articulated requirements and a definition of done, and if requirements are lacking they will not hesitate to cheerfully and collaboratively work with in-house “customers” to generate clear requirements. They will keep a big-picture focus on end user needs and will not be afraid to ask why a requirement exists (or doesn’t exist). They will know the joys of clean libraries, and the horrors of inadequately considered feedback time constants leading to oscillations. They will know when it makes sense to use by hand calculations to predict performance, when to use simulation, and when not to bother with either (which is likely most of the time). As a seasoned professional engineer they will understand the value of clean and clear documentation and organization of work, and they understand that someone needs to write the Mfg work instruments, and sometimes it’s them. They will understand the need to scramble to hit a schedule, but will also know that a non-stop scramble work environment is a recipe for disaster.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
- Generate expert-level Electrical Engineering best practice designs for Research, Development, and Sustaining efforts, including analysis and simulation as needed.
- Contribute to system-level Electrical architectural designs that meet Market requirements.
- Design, build, and test prototypes.
- Contribute to DFME and mitigation analysis, including system/architectural level designs that achieve field serviceability requirements.
- Contribute to improving Engineering and Operations processes, e.g. engineering change order flow, vendor qualification procedures, engineering change order implementation.
- Provide root cause analysis for failures and improve designs to mitigate those failures.
- Develop tools and procedures for manufacturing which improve efficiency and product yield and reduce costs.
- Provide cost and schedule estimates for various tasks.
- Manage projects and tasks to company defined schedules and budgets.
- Contribute to and lead technical design review with multidisciplinary teams and upper management.
- Contribute to patent applications
- Other tasks as assigned by your supervisor
Qualifications
Typically requires a B.S. in Electrical Engineering with 15 years industry experience, or M.S. with 12 years industry experience, or Ph.D. with 10 years industry experience. Experience is to include both bringing products to market and support of a production line.
Additional Skills
Must have the social “soft skills” required to be collaborative across the organization. Must be able to understand and communicate well in English, both spoken and written, and be able to write reports, work instructions, business correspondence, procedures, and manuals. Must be able to present work in an organized way both for project/progress reviews and design reviews. Must have knowledge of and facility with document control systems and product lifecycle systems and tools. Must have knowledge of standard Microsoft office tools.
Physical Requirements
The employee is occasionally required to stand, walk, stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. When working in machine shop, chemistry, or optics lab, appropriate protective gear must be worn including eyewear, eye protection from laser or UV light, lab coats, and closed toed shoes.
Work Environment
Office space, optics lab, chemistry lab, warehouse, and electronics and optical manufacturing space. The employee may occasionally be exposed to moderate noise levels, e.g. from loud fans in electronics equipment. Travel may occasionally be required, e.g. to test labs, customer sites, for conferences and trade shows, or for training.