About Redwood Materials
Redwood Materials was founded in 2017 by JB Straubel, co-founder and former CTO of Tesla, on a simple but radical idea: the critical minerals powering the energy transition already exist. They just need to come back. Today Redwood is the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America — recovering, refining, and redeploying critical minerals from end-of-life batteries back into the supply chain. On the energy side, Redwood has deployed the largest second-life battery project in the world, delivering power to AI data centers in months rather than years using proprietary energy architecture engineered entirely in-house. The company is profitable, the market it operates in is projected to grow 20 to 50 times over the next decade, and Redwood is the only company with the supply chain, the technology, and the operational scale to lead it.
Position Summary:
Join Redwood Materials to validate the high-voltage power electronics behind the world’s energy storage systems. You’ll design and run validation tests on components and assemblies operating at 400–2000VDC and 480–800VAC. You’ll work directly from schematics, Altium layouts, and datasheets to understand switching topologies, gate drive, isolation, protection, and thermal behavior, then use that understanding to build sharper tests. When something fails, you’ll probe the circuit, isolate the fault, and drive root cause to the component level. You’ll design and source custom PCBAs for characterization, build electrical-focused test infrastructure with mechanical and software elements, and write Python tools to automate testing and analyze data. Working alongside design, reliability, and abuse engineers on FMEAs and test plans, you’ll turn complex data into design and process improvements that ship. If you thrive at the bench, love finding the real cause of a failure, and want your work to matter from day one, this is your role.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
- Design, set up, and execute validation tests on high-voltage power electronics components and assemblies
- Read and work directly from schematics, Altium layouts, and datasheets to understand circuit behavior and inform test design
- Debug and diagnose hardware hands-on — probe circuits, isolate faults, and drive root cause investigations to the component level
- Design, fabricate, and source custom PCBAs to support component-level characterization and test needs
- Specify and build supporting test infrastructure spanning electrical, mechanical, and software domains, with an emphasis on electrical scope
- Develop and maintain test automation and data analysis tools using Python
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams (design, reliability, and abuse engineers) to generate FMEAs and test plans; analyze complex test data and drive design and process enhancements
Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities
- Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, or a related field
- 5+ years of technical experience in test engineering, hardware validation, or power electronics development
- Hands-on experience with high-voltage systems (400–2000VDC and 480–800VAC)
- Proficiency with Altium or similar EDA tools; fluency reading schematics, layouts, and component datasheets
- Comfort at the bench with oscilloscopes, probes, and general lab instrumentation
- Working knowledge of power conversion — switching topologies, gate drive, isolation, protection, and thermals
- Demonstrated experience with root cause and failure analysis — tracing a failure to a component or mechanism, not just documenting the symptom
- Proficiency in object-oriented programming, Python preferred
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; ability to engage effectively with stakeholders at all organizational levels, including executives
- A get-it-done attitude; no job is too big or too small
The position is full-time. Compensation will be commensurate with experience.
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