Senior Validation Engineer

Who’ll You Be Joining:  

Our Hardware team is made up of engineers with a wide variety of specialties, skill sets, backgrounds, and experiences ranging from HVAC control to RF design, digital logic, avionics, test fixtures, embedded software development, PCB layout and power electronics. They aim to bring their wide experience to the cross-functional squads that they are a part of, with a focus on collaboration, learning, development.

As a Senior Verification Engineer, based in ecobee’s Waterloo design centre, you will be a lead member responsible for transforming innovative ideas from concept to prototype through to mass production, you will be pivotal to ensure that every product we ship is stamped with engineering approval for quality and reliability. Working with other members of the Hardware Engineering team, you will play a key role in maintaining our reputation for reliable, robust and high-quality products where customer experience is paramount. With your strong background in electrical engineering concepts, schematic analysis, simulations, circuit debugging and instrumentation, you will carefully review both legacy and new products and develop and execute test plans to validate the designs.

How You’ll Make an Impact: 

• Creating and executing engineering design verification test plans
• Preparing and executing reliability test plans to increase confidence in warranty and service life targets
• Conducting Highly Accelerated Life Tests (HALT) and Accelerated Life Tests (ALT) to expose device vulnerabilities and improve designs
• Perform engineering assessments of test and verification activities against real-world field applications
• Create proposals and abstracts of ideas for automations and verification test improvements, breakdown and execute steps to concept/development
• Designing and building test instrumentation systems to standardize and automate experiments and data capture of many concurrent DUT simultaneously
• Experience designing, building, and iterating on custom built automated verification fixtures to enhance repeatability, scope, and throughput of test coverage
• Building Python scripts, familiarity with SCPI commands/interfacing, analyzing and compiling large datasets of presenting information and analyses of tests
• Conducting and reviewing Gage repeatability and reproducibility analyses as well as yield reports and production test issue resolution
• Assist with root causing factory issues with a background of manufacturing processes and design knowledge to isolate variables and find system or component level issues
• PFMEA’s and performing assessments and trade-offs of test coverage to conceptualize production test suites for high volume mass production test
• Executing on cost-benefit analyses and risk assessments to optimize production test decisions and coverage
• Documentation and report creation of tests completed
• Analyzing experimentation results and engineering reports from others to issue approval or rejection
• Identifying component alternates and creating test plans to validate substitutions to reduce BOM cost or mitigate supply chain issues
• Environmental, ESD, Surge, EFT and compliance testing of new and existing products
• Researching, identifying and executing on applicable UL, CSA, IEC or other specifications relevant to product development
• Prototyping of new circuits before inclusion into production programs
• Creating of Production Test Plans, Test scripts and Production Test Fixtures
• Collaborating with teammates to improve and guide all test/verification activities (reports, methods, procedures, designs, fixtures) and creating proposals of ideas
• Providing recommendations on design integrity and issuing recommendation to proceed to mass production
• Identify and escalate major design risk factors; identify, validate and propose alternate suggestions with concern for cross-functional impact (feature set, cost targets, design scope, etc.)
• Designing Printed Circuit Boards intended to prototype new circuits, create fixtures, development tools or other uses

What You’ll Bring to the Table:   

• Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics (or similar)
• 5+ years industry experience in electrical hardware product development with emphasis on consumer electronics
• Must have been involved with full product development and high volume production
  • design concept, circuit design, multiple stages of prototype development and test, entry into manufacturing, test fixtures
  • identify and resolve design issues resulting in more reliable product and easing production
  • identify and resolve field failures and work back improvements into the design.
• Experience in Hardware design, validation and test execution
• Proven experience in Schematic design and review, Printed Circuit Board review
• Printed Circuit Board review and knowledge of PCB layout fundamentals
• Python or other scripting for embedded control and automation of testing
• Hardware debugging and root cause analysis
• Analog and high-speed digital circuit analysis
• Familiarity with oscilloscope, DAQ, DMM, thermal chamber, spectrum analyzer, VNA among other lab equipment
• Understanding of testing principles and impact on results
• Solder and rework fine pitch electronic SMT components including 0201, XDFN, TSOT
• Familiarity with PCBA manufacturing processes
• Understanding of full product design principles, thermal transfer, etc. and impact on electronics
• Knowledge of embedded systems, architecture, operating states, and optimizations
• Strong industry awareness of critical parts manufacturers

Bonus Points if You Can Bring this to the Table:   

• Background in PCB layout including optimization of power distribution networks, stack-up design, high-speed interfaces and high voltage systems
• Experience in low power, IoT sensor design
• CPU architectures, 8 bit, 32 bit and 64 bit experience
• Memory architectures, eMMC, DDR3, DDR4 etc.
• Embedded Linux and C++ development, Ability to write C++ for MCU applications
• Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) designation

We’ve built the following list as a guideline for some of the skills and interests of our development team - but we strive to build our team with members from a diverse background and skill set, so if any combination of these apply to you we’d love to chat! 

P.S. Through trial and error, we’ve learned that people don’t apply unless we provide a guideline. However, what’s more important to us than a number is the experiences you’ve had and the skills you’ve developed—regardless of the length of time it took to get where you are. Do you have 20+ years of experience? Awesome, please apply. Have only 3 years, but feel you meet the requirements above? Great, send us your resume.   

What happens after you apply: 

Application review. It will happen. By an actual person in Talent Acquisition. As we sometimes get upwards of 100+ applications for some roles, it can take a few days, but every applicant can expect a note regarding their application status. 

Interview Process.  

• A 30-minute phone/video call with a member in Talent Acquisition 
• A 1 hour interview with our Hiring Manager Sr Manager, Hardware Engineer with Director, Hardware Engineer and our VP of Hardware Engineering. This conversation will revolve around getting to know each other, the backgrounds and professional journeys encompassing some technical discussion
• The next step will be to do a technical case study and present in a final virtual interview of 1 hour.  We normally give candidates a week to complete the case study.