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Planet

PCB Design Engineer

San Francisco, USAHybridPosted 1 month ago

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Job type
Full-time
Work mode
Hybrid
Level
Not listed
Department
Engineering
Experience
5+ years experience
Posted
Aug 24, 2026

About the role

About the Role:

You will work within a small team of dedicated engineers responsible for the design of Planet’s satellites. This is not your typical aerospace or consumer electronics role. You will work designing printed circuit board assemblies optimized for medium-scale mass production. You will design and optimize electrical power, data handling, and sensor interfacing systems, both within the spacecraft and on ground support equipment. You will be responsible for complex high-speed digital, analog, RF and Microwave PCB/PCBA designs and interfacing with electrical design engineers to make sure that board meets their design requirements. You will work with board manufacturers to ensure they are fabricating and assembling a quality product. Your work will then be put in a rocket and shot into space.

Impact You'll Own:

  • Design layout of RF/Microwave, power, microprocessor, high-speed interface, and mixed-signal Printed Circuit Boards for satellite applications in concert with the electrical design engineers
  • Collaborate with electrical design engineers and supply chain to manage PCB design in Altium environment and the integration with the configuration control, inventory, and manufacturing system
  • Coordinate with vendors to ensure on-time delivery of high-quality, high-reliability PCB Assemblies that meet IPC standards
  • Generate fabrication and assembly packages, including drawings, and management of design and drawing templates
  • Create parts entries, including footprints and schematic symbols, for the Altium database parts library
  • Manage the Altium parts library
  • Partner with electrical design engineers to manage subcontractors performing PCB layouts of their designs and reviewing their outputs
  • Select PCB material and fabrication processes

What You Bring:

  • 5+ years experience in PCB layout design
  • Experience with Altium Designer
  • Experience implementing and enforcing IPC standards for PCB design, fabrication, and assembly

What Makes You Stand Out:

  • Experience withDesign for Manufacturing (DFM) and Design for Test (DFT) checks, running design rule checks (DRCs).
  • Experience with quality management, i.e. addressing quality issues with vendors resulting in corrective actions
  • Experience with high density, flex and rigid-flex PCB design and boards using RF material.