Senior R&D Engineering Technician

Our Mission

At Span, we are building products to drive the rapid adoption of renewable energy by designing the infrastructure for a distributed, renewable grid. Our smart panel reinvents home electrical systems as part of the distributed grid and makes user-friendly renewable energy at the center of the smart home, presenting intelligent load-balancing and revolutionary edge-of-grid controls to homeowners through the Span mobile app.

The Role

The Team

Span’s Systems Engineering team is a cross-functional team that supports the Span engineering organization across the board. We are responsible for Span’s lab space and physical test infrastructure, run hardware and software tests, and create hardware and software for automated testing. As part of Systems Engineering you’ll get to work with teams across the company, and will get to work with a high degree of autonomy and ownership.

 

Role

As the first dedicated engineering technician on the Span team, we will look to you for a variety of hands-on tasks, from assembling prototypes to building test rigs to running tests. You’ll help us design and build our next-generation lab; build and test prototypes for new products; and generally support the engineering team.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Designing + building mechanical test fixtures and electrical test setups for the Span lab

• Building test harnesses, assembling PCBAs, or putting together prototypes

• Running hardware tests (thermal, reliability, etc.); moving and setting up equipment and materials between Span and third-party test houses

• Helping set up the Span lab, organizing materials and tools, and otherwise maintaining order

• Manage shipping/receiving and material organization in the Span lab

• Customer and field support as needed

 

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in a fast-paced engineering development environment

• Extensive hands-on experience with electrical systems

• High degree of skill at soldering & electrical rework

• Ability to operate and maintain a wide variety of hand and power tools, shop tools, and lab equipment

• Ability to design and construct test fixtures (80/20 and otherwise)

• Comfort reading + building from electrical schematics, wiring diagrams, and harness drawings

• Comfort with Atlassian Suite (Jira, Confluence)

• Strong interpersonal and communications skills

• Remain engaged, proactive and positive in tough circumstances, owning assignments and taking full accountability for their success

• Positive attitude, eagerness to learn and ability to change direction quickly

 

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience with high voltage / high power systems

• Experience with home electrical wiring

• Experience using electrical instrumentation (DMM, oscilloscope, logic analyzer)

• Experience with surface mount soldering and/or reflow soldering

• Experience using 3D CAD (Solidworks) and rapid prototyping tools (3D printer, lasercutter)

• Experience and/or interest in test, control, and data acquisition equipment and software (LabView, Python)

• Experience outsourcing work; familiarity with fabricators, prototype houses, machine shops etc. in the Bay Area

• First aid / AED / CPR training

Life at Span

Span is a startup based in the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco. We are a small, diverse team of creative thinkers. We value open communication, teamwork, and a make-it-happen attitude - no job is too big or too small. We strive to make change by imagining what the future could be and building a product to complete that vision. We are looking to grow our team with talented people who are on the same mission to shape the future of energy.

Working at Span, you can expect:

• Competitive compensation at a well-funded, venture-backed company

• Comprehensive benefits including a choice of medical plans; dental, vision, life and disability insurance

• A sunny, airy office located close to BART and Caltrain public transit

• Regular team lunches, brown bag learning opportunities, board games nights, and other opportunities to connect with teammates - in-person and now virtually

• Equity grants at a quickly-growing startup

• Flexible hours and vacation time - we simultaneously work hard and make space for the important stuff

• To be a part of a team and culture that is hard-working, has a good sense of humor, values collaboration, and is just a little bit nerdy 

Span embraces diversity and equal opportunity in a serious way. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.

Note on COVID-19

Span takes the health of our employees very seriously. During the COVID pandemic our employees are working from home as much as possible, with just a 2-4 person skeleton crew operating the office. For employee safety, we follow strict in-office mask guidelines and have put in place air movement/filtration systems.

With that said, this role will be very hardware-centric, so we expect you will need to be in the office the majority of the time.