Proper Voltage
Lead Controls Engineer - Power Electronics
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Remote (Remote, US)
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Lead
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Industrial engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- BS in Electrical Engineering or equivalent demonstrated capability.
- Six or more years designing control systems for switched-mode power converters.
- Direct, hands-on experience designing control loops for switched-mode power converters that reached validated hardware. You can name the topology, control mode, switching and sampling frequencies, com
- Working command of small-signal modeling (state-space averaging or equivalent) and frequency-domain design: Bode and Nyquist analysis, crossover, phase and gain margin, and right-half-plane zeros.
- Working command of discrete-time control: s-to-z mapping (bilinear/Tustin, zero-order hold), the effect of sampling and computational delay on phase margin, aliasing, and quantization.
- Fluency in PLECS or MATLAB/Simulink, with the ability to build a converter model rather than only run an existing one.
- Proficiency in Python or MATLAB scripting for simulation automation and data analysis.
- Working proficiency in C: able to read and write control code, run it in simulation, and judge whether a firmware implementation matches the design.
- Understanding of the digital implementation constraints that shape a design: PWM-triggered ADC sampling, update latency, fixed-point range and resolution, and ISR timing budgets.
- Independent lab capability with oscilloscopes, isolated and differential probes, current probes, electronic loads, bidirectional supplies, and a network or frequency response analyzer for loop gain me
- A track record of written control design specifications that another engineer implemented successfully.
Nice to have
- MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering with a focus in power electronics or control systems.
- Bidirectional and multiphase interleaved converter control, including coupled inductors, current sharing, and phase balancing between paralleled phases.
- Average current mode control specifically, as distinct from voltage mode or peak current mode, and feedforward design for four-switch buck-boost converters.
- Large-signal behavior: buck-to-boost mode transitions, discontinuous conduction boundaries, saturation recovery, and limit cycles.
- Wide-bandgap power stages (GaN, SiC) and their effect on control — sense chain noise, blanking, and dead-time sensitivity.
- Digital power controllers such as dsPIC33C, TI C2000, or STM32G4, at the level of knowing what their PWM and ADC architectures allow.
- Hardware-in-the-loop or real-time simulation platforms such as PLECS RT Box, Typhoon HIL, or OPAL-RT.
- Python numerical tools (NumPy, SciPy, python-control) for control analysis.
- Battery energy storage, EV charging, photovoltaic inverter, or grid-interactive converter experience, including BMS interaction such as current limit negotiation and precharge.
- Functional safety and certification exposure: IEC 61508 concepts, UL 1973, UL 1998, UL 9540, and FMEA.
- Version control and code review applied to models and analysis scripts, not only firmware.
Full description
Job Overview
Proper Voltage designs and builds safety-critical battery energy storage systems. This role leads control design for our bidirectional DC/DC power conversion stage — the current and voltage loops, mode transitions, and protection behavior of multiphase interleaved converters — from plant model through validated hardware.
This role sits where power electronics control meets software. You will model the plant, design and discretize the compensators, and prove them in closed-loop simulation running the actual control code. Then you hand the firmware team a design they can implement without guesswork: coefficients, scaling, sample timing, delay budget, limits, and the margins the implementation must preserve.
You will work as a pair with our Lead Firmware Engineer – Power Conversion Control. You own what the loop should do and why; they own how it runs on the silicon. When measured loop gain disagrees with the model, you find out which one is wrong.
What you'll do
- Control design for four-switch buck-boost power stages and successor topologies: current and voltage loops, feedforward, multiphase interleaved operation, and phase current balancing.
- Plant models and closed-loop simulation models for each converter, kept current with the hardware and used as the reference for firmware verification.
- Operating mode and protection behavior: the transition logic, thresholds, and response-time requirements that firmware implements.
- Control design specifications — the documented interface between control design and firmware implementation.
- Control loop verification: model-to-measurement correlation, loop gain and stability margin characterization, transient response, and stability across the full operating envelope.
- Control performance evidence supporting UL 1973, UL 1998, and UL 9540 certification.
Responsibilities
- Derive small-signal plant models for buck, boost, four-switch buck-boost, and multiphase interleaved topologies, including coupled-inductor effects, right-half-plane zeros, and operating-point variation across the envelope.
- Design compensators (PID, type II/III, 2p2z/3p3z) and feedforward paths to meet bandwidth, phase margin, and gain margin targets for average current mode inner loops and voltage outer loops.
- Discretize designs for digital implementation, accounting for sampling, zero-order hold, computational delay, and PWM update latency, and specify the sample rates and delay budget the firmware must meet.
- Build closed-loop converter models in PLECS and/or MATLAB/Simulink from scratch, and use SPICE-class tools for switching-cell verification where averaged models fall short.
- Write code for simulation and analysis: scripted parameter sweeps, component-tolerance and worst-case analysis, and automated stability checks across the operating envelope in Python or MATLAB.