FIRST ORDER EFFECTS

Power Electronics Engineer

Infrastructure for the Autonomous Era · First in. First up.

On-site · Austin, TX

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MESH is a power plant in a box, and power electronics is its heart. Your job is to design the inverter we build ourselves, and to own the conversion stage end to end. If you have taken switching converters from a blank schematic to hardware humming under real load, this is the machine you get to own.

Who We Are

First Order Effects (FOE) is building America's Infrastructure Prime for the robotic era. Autonomous ships, drones, and robots are rewriting how the world moves, fights, and builds - but none of them work without infrastructure to power them, connect them, and launch and recover them. That's what we build.

We've Built Cutting Edge Systems at Legendary Companies

Our team comes from SpaceX, Anduril, Saronic, Lockheed Skunk Works, Forterra, and Fuse Energy. Before founding FOE, we built satellite ground stations that closed a national comms gap in days, deployed multi-megawatt power systems at commercial speed, and shipped autonomous surface vessels into Navy fleet production. We've built infrastructure at lightspeed before - now we're applying that playbook to an entire company.

The Role

Architect and design the in-house inverter and DC/DC stages for MESH: topology, device selection across MOSFET, GaN, and SiC, gate drive, magnetics, and thermal.
Take converters from schematic and simulation through prototype, bring-up, and test under real load.
Design for the field: efficiency, EMI, ruggedization, and thermal survival in maritime and expeditionary conditions.
Define the control approach for the power stage, working shoulder to shoulder with firmware on the loops.
Own component selection, protection, and safety margins, and lead the design and selection of power electronics.

What You'll Do

Drive power electronics design across the full cycle, carrying converters all the way to working hardware.
Get hands-on with switching design in MOSFET, GaN, or SiC, including gate drive and magnetics.
Solve the thermal, EMI/EMC, and layout problems that come with high-power, high-frequency switching.
Work the bench with scopes, probes, and power analyzers, debugging your own boards.
Design from first-principles.

What We're Looking For

Experience with converters from kilowatts to hundreds of kilowatts, battery inverters, or grid-forming and grid-tied systems.
A background in LFP battery systems, diesel gensets, or microgrids.
Familiarity with UL, IEEE, or MIL power standards.

Compensation

$100,000–$250,000 base + founding-team equity sized for the role + benefits. If you're an outlier, we'll pay like it.

ITAR requirement

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations (ITAR/EAR), applicants must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3). Candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance; active clearance not required.

FOE is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with FOE is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

Sovereignty is built, not declared — come build it with us.

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