Power Electronics Design Engineer

Ford Ford · Auto · Palo Alto, CA +1 · PD Operations and Quality

This role is for a Power Electronics Design Engineer at Ford, focusing on the design and development of drive unit inverter sub-components from concept to production. Responsibilities include part design, release, manufacturing process development, testing, cost optimization, and ensuring durability, efficiency, and performance for automotive applications. The role requires a Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or equivalent, strong engineering fundamentals, CAD skills, and hands-on hardware experience. Experience with product release, manufacturing partners, finite element methods, durability testing, FMEAs, and various manufacturing processes is preferred.

What you'd actually do

  1. Own inverter mechanical parts from concept through production including part design and release.
  2. Develop manufacturing processes including running DOEs and executing process validation.
  3. Design and execute physical tests in a lab environment, including designing fixtures / test equipment.
  4. Plan, coordinate, and execute test campaigns for design verification of inverter sub-components and the inverter system.
  5. Optimize costs from design to manufacturing and create robust designs for automotive application.

Skills

Required

  • Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience
  • Robust foundation in engineering first principles with good engineering judgement
  • Intellectual honesty, curiosity, and humility
  • Mechanical Engineering or similar degree
  • Strong CAD skills (Catia / 3DX preferred)
  • Hands-on experience building and testing hardware in a prototype / lab environment (strong workshop skills preferred)

Nice to have

  • 5+ years of experience designing, developing, and releasing products (power electronics or similar devices brought to production preferred)
  • Passionate and curious about deep technical problems and driven to deliver engineering excellence
  • Experience releasing prototype and production parts including drafting, GD&T, tolerance analysis, and DFM
  • Experience managing or working closely with manufacturing partners, contract manufacturers, and in-house manufacturing teams to bring parts to production
  • Experience using finite element methods for optimizing and validating structural, thermal, and electrical systems
  • Experience designing and executing durability and design verification campaigns
  • Experience leading design / process FMEAs for electronics and/or automotive systems
  • Experience designing parts, fixtures, and tools for prototype manufacturing processes including CNC milling / turning / EDM, 3D printing, press-brake sheet metal, and low volume tooled processes
  • Experience designing parts for high volume manufacturing processes including casting, forging, stamping, extruding, injection molding, overmolding, and machining
  • Experience troubleshooting / triaging prototype and production build issues
  • Strong written and verbal communication / presentation / story-telling skills
  • Strong cross-functional collaboration and project leadership skills

What the JD emphasized

  • own complex drive unit inverter sub-components
  • driving the development of parts and processes with substantial impact on vehicle-level cost and performance
  • Own inverter mechanical parts from concept through production including part design and release.
  • Optimize costs from design to manufacturing and create robust designs for automotive application.
  • Own mechanical parts for inverters, driving optimization for durability, efficiency, and performance.