Kea Aerospace has partnered with RobLawMax Recruitment to appoint a Senior Power Electronics Engineer to its Christchurch-based team.
Kea is developing the Kea Atmos, a solar-powered, remotely piloted stratospheric aircraft designed to remain airborne continuously for months at a time. Operating approximately 20 kilometres above the Earth, it will support maritime surveillance, environmental monitoring, disaster management and other applications.
The Kea Atmos will be the largest unmanned aircraft built in the Southern Hemisphere. This newly created role offers the opportunity to own critical aircraft electronics and see your designs progress from initial concept through to flight.
The opportunity
You will take ownership of electronics development from establishing requirements and system architecture through to detailed design, board bring-up, verification and flight-test support.
Rather than receiving a fully developed specification, you will work with the wider aircraft team to determine what is needed, make sound technical trade-offs and deliver robust, working hardware.
Depending on your particular area of expertise, your responsibilities will include:
- Defining electronic system requirements, architecture and technical trade studies.
- Leading the design and optimisation of power-conversion, distribution, monitoring and data-collection electronics.
- Designing analogue circuits, schematics, magnetic components and PCB layouts.
- Developing high-efficiency, lightweight electronic solutions suitable for an aircraft with limited available energy.
- Modelling efficiency, mass, cost and performance to guide design decisions.
- Building, testing and debugging prototypes, including investigating unexpected faults and unusual operating conditions.
- Addressing EMI/EMC, thermal performance, packaging, reliability and manufacturability.
- Supporting environmental qualification, aircraft integration and flight testing.
- Producing clear technical reports that explain findings and inform design decisions.
- Collaborating with design, test and manufacturing colleagues to deliver flight-ready hardware.
About you
We are looking for a Senior Electronics Engineer with at least seven years’ hands-on experience and deep expertise in power electronics or a closely related electronics field.
Power electronics is the preferred background. However, Kea is also open to experienced engineers from other domains, such as embedded hardware, where the overall technical fit is strong.
You must be a confident communicator with strong spoken and written English. In particular, you will need to produce high-quality technical reports that clearly explain your findings and inform design choices.
Depending on your background, your experience is likely to include several of the following:
- DC-DC switch-mode power supplies, converter topology selection and analogue control.
- Analogue circuit design, electromagnetics, magnetic-component design or discrete logic.
- Embedded hardware and complex PCB design.
- Defining system requirements rather than relying on an existing specification.
- System-level power architecture, budgeting and technical trade studies.
- Designing, building, testing and fault-finding printed circuit boards.
- Modelling, simulation, validation and structured system verification.
- Schematic-capture and PCB-layout software. Kea uses Altium, although experience with comparable packages is transferable.
- Understanding how PCB layout affects EMI/EMC, thermal performance and manufacturability.
- Taking electronic hardware from initial concept through to a tested working product.
You will also need to be comfortable working autonomously within a small, agile engineering team where no one will necessarily tell you exactly what needs to be built or how to build it.
Relevant backgrounds
Aerospace or spacecraft experience would be advantageous but is not essential. Relevant experience may come from electric vehicles, battery systems, electric propulsion, aviation, defence, drones or other high-reliability and harsh-environment electronic systems.
The key is your ability to apply strong fundamental knowledge to the unusual conditions encountered at stratospheric altitude, including extreme cold, very thin air and an increased risk of electrical arcing.
Additional experience
Experience in any of the following would be useful but is not essential:
- Lithium-ion battery systems or solar-array integration
- Aerospace EMI/EMC standards and FMEA/FMECA
- Environmental or qualification testing
- Taking designs from prototype into production
- Design for Manufacturability and Design for Testability
- High-speed digital interfaces and structured engineering-change processes
- Python or another high-level language for modelling, automation or testing
- Mentoring engineers and contributing to wider technical development
Why Kea Aerospace?
- Own critical aircraft electronics rather than one small part of an established product.
- Work on technology unlike anything else being developed in this part of the world.
- See your designs move rapidly from concept and bench testing to integration and flight.
- Join a talented, mission-driven team where your decisions directly shape the aircraft.
Kea is interested in both New Zealand-based and international candidates. Applications should clearly state your current New Zealand work status or whether immigration support would be required.
For security and safety reasons, police vetting will be undertaken before an offer of employment is made.
For a confidential discussion, contact Peter Henderson on 027 441 9300 at RobLawMax Recruitment, or apply with your CV and a brief summary of electronic hardware you have personally taken from design through to testing.
