Senior PCB Design & Hardware Simulation Engineer

About the role

Gramian Consultancy, a boutique consultancy for IT professional services and engineering talent, is hiring an experienced Hardware Design Engineer as an independent contractor. The role uses KiCad to analyse, redesign, simulate and validate electronic hardware, focusing on signal integrity (SI), electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and/or thermal performance. It is fully remote, at 40 hours per week, for about 13 weeks with possible extensions.

Key responsibilities

• Translate product requirements into circuit architectures, hardware specifications and validated designs.
• Develop and modify schematics and multilayer PCB layouts in KiCad, including component selection, routing, design-rule checks, BOM preparation and manufacturing documentation.
• Analyse existing PCB layouts and simulation results to find SI, EMC and thermal issues, then investigate root causes and define measurable acceptance criteria.
• Redesign PCB layouts to fix the issues while keeping the original schematic, netlist connectivity and component selection.
• Run and interpret simulations of impedance, signal reflections, crosstalk, return paths, temperature distribution and thermal hotspots, and document inputs, assumptions and limitations.
• Document design decisions, corrective actions and verification findings, and support prototype bring-up, debugging and validation.

Required profile

• 8+ years of overall engineering experience, with at least 6 years of hands-on electronics hardware and PCB design, including multilayer PCBs.
• At least 4 years of practical simulation experience in signal integrity / EMC and/or thermal analysis.
• Ability to set up, run, interpret and validate simulations independently, and to correlate simulation results with actual PCB behaviour.

Required skills

• Hands-on KiCad experience for schematic capture and PCB design.
• Strong understanding of circuit analysis, component selection and datasheets.
• Solid knowledge of grounding, power distribution, signal integrity, thermal management, DFM and DFT.
• Technical documentation and problem-solving skills.