Embedded Hardware | Compute Module Development

About the Team

From applied research to advanced engineering, Forward Edge-AI's engineering technologist function carries the expertise to shape groundbreaking products, materials, and processes. The team assesses the competition, develops technology and product strategies, generates intellectual property, leads technology investigations, analyzes industry capabilities, and recommends potential acquisitions or vendor-partner opportunities. Its insights influence product architecture and definition, and the team works across the business to help ensure the company's products lead the way.

Position Overview

Forward Edge-AI is seeking a Principal Electrical Engineer to lead the design and development of embedded hardware and custom compute-module solutions. This is the company’s most senior individual engineering position, with responsibility for helping guide the direction of the engineering organization through deep experience, technical judgment, and sound engineering intuition.

The role spans system architecture, schematic design, PCB development, prototype bring-up, and hardware validation. It also carries responsibility for managing external suppliers and evaluating the broader technology landscape, including emerging SoC, memory, and interconnect roadmaps. The Principal Electrical Engineer will translate those insights into differentiated solutions that deliver smaller packages, faster performance, and capabilities that remain ahead of emerging competition and general availability.

The successful candidate will architect and validate electrical designs, serve as the primary technical authority across functional forums, and foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement within the team.

Key Responsibilities

• Own system architecture decisions for processors, SoCs, MCUs, FPGAs, memory, storage, networking, and power.
• Architect, review, and validate schematics, multilayer PCB layouts, design files, and technical documentation.
• Design and review multilayer PCBs, including power distribution, grounding, routing, and high-speed interfaces.
• Design for manufacturing, including SMT criteria and best practices for EMI, EMC, and ESD containment.
• Serve as the primary technical authority across functional forums, arbitrating trade-offs across electrical, mechanical, firmware, and software domains.
• Manage relationships with component and SoC suppliers, evaluate development platforms and supplier roadmaps, and qualify emerging technologies before committing to a custom design.
• Identify non-linear architectural approaches that reduce size, increase performance, and differentiate the product line against emerging competitors.
• Lead prototype bring-up, debugging, testing, design verification, and failure analysis.
• Identify layout, SMT, grounding, signal-integrity, and power-integrity issues early to reduce unnecessary board spins.
• Lead cross-functional teams and drive complex hardware programs from concept through completion.
• Mentor and develop engineering talent through technical guidance and career-development support.
• Maintain clear design documentation, source files, component libraries, and revision history.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• 15+ years of electrical engineering experience in embedded hardware, PCB design, and product development.
• Deep expertise in analog and digital circuit design, including high-speed interfaces.
• Recent hands-on experience with schematic capture and PCB motherboard design.
• Networking hardware experience.
• Experience developing hardware around processors, SoCs, MCUs, SOMs, or compute modules.
• Working knowledge of high-speed interfaces such as DDR, PCIe, USB, and Ethernet.
• Strong command of board-level power architecture, regulators, sequencing, reset, clocking, grounding, and layout practices.
• Strong understanding of system-level trade-offs across electrical, mechanical, firmware, and software domains.
• Proven record of leading cross-functional teams and driving complex programs to completion.
• Hands-on prototype bring-up and laboratory debugging using standard electrical test equipment.
• Ability to review an existing design, identify risks, and recommend practical technical solutions.
• Ability to communicate clearly and lead architecture and design discussions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing or evaluating custom compute-module or embedded-computing designs.
• Familiarity with eMMC, LPDDR, NVMe, Ethernet, USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or similar embedded technologies.
• Experience with Altium Designer, Cadence Allegro/OrCAD, KiCad, or a comparable PCB design tool.
• FPGA development experience, including licensing and development of IP blocks.
• Experience assessing competitive products and generating intellectual property.

Initial Deliverables

1. Review available schematics, layouts, requirements, and engineering documentation.
2. Assess the current architecture and identify technical risks, design gaps, and open decisions.
3. Evaluate processor and SoC options against supplier roadmaps and recommend a component architecture that supports the next two product generations.
4. Validate key architectural decisions using development hardware where practical.
5. Advance schematic and PCB development toward a manufacturable prototype.
6. Establish a technical-review cadence and mentorship structure for the engineering team.

Success Measures

• Sound architecture decisions that support current product requirements and future development.
• Early identification and resolution of PCB, layout, grounding, and component-selection risks.
• Successful prototype fabrication, bring-up, and hardware validation.
• Clear, maintainable engineering documentation and design files.
• Measurable growth in the technical capability of the engineering team.
• Product architecture that demonstrably leads emerging competitive offerings in size, speed, and capability.

Why Forward Edge-AI?

• Help shape advanced embedded-computing products and next-generation technical architectures.
• Work across applied research, product strategy, engineering, and supplier ecosystems.
• Exercise senior technical leadership while remaining hands-on with architecture, design, and validation.
• Join a mission-focused organization committed to innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

How to Apply

Qualified candidates should submit a resume describing relevant embedded-hardware leadership, architecture, PCB development, product-development, and prototype-validation experience through the authorized Forward Edge-AI application channel.