Senior Validation Engineer Jobs in Iowa (NOW HIRING)

InnerPlant is on a mission to transform farming as never before imagined:  We give crops a voice by turning plants into living sensors that signal the onset of stress, enabling farmers to increase yields and reduce costs by optimizing inputs.

We're seeking a Senior Electrical Systems Engineer to lead the design, integration, and deployment of electrical systems that power our sensing platforms and field technologies of our commercial product, CropVoice.  The CropVoice platform translates signals from our living sensors to pinpoint stress well before visible symptoms, giving farmers and agronomists critical and timely insights and removing the guesswork behind key in-season decisions.

As a Senior Electrical Systems Engineer, you'll play a critical role in developing and producing the hardware and systems that detect the optical signals from our living sensors.  You will manage hardware, embedded systems, optics, and data acquisition to develop reliable products that operate in demanding agricultural environments.  To achieve success as a Senior Electrical Engineer, you will:

• Lead electrical system architecture for next-generation sensing and imaging platforms.
• Design analog and digital electronic circuits for embedded hardware and sensor interfaces.
• Develop robust power distribution, battery management, and power optimization solutions for field-deployed systems.
• Select components, create schematics, support PCB layout, and oversee prototype builds.
• Define system-level requirements, interface specifications, and verification plans.
• Perform hardware validation, troubleshooting, and root-cause analysis.
• Support environmental, EMC, reliability, and field testing to ensure dependable operation under real-world agricultural conditions.
• Manage engineering documentation including design reviews, BOMs, test reports, and manufacturing documentation.
• Partner with contract manufacturers and suppliers to transition designs into production.

The successful Senior Electrical Engineer will be an experienced engineer who enjoys building complex systems from concept through production and thrives in a fast-moving startup environment.  In particular, you will:

• Be forward-thinking with respect to solutions that are scalable and cost-effective for near and long-term commercial objectives, balancing performance, reliability, ease of manufacture, and cost.
• Collaborate across internal teams, in particular with software, optical, mechanical, and product engineering teams, to deliver integrated hardware solutions.
• Relentlessly strive for continuous improvement, including design improvements.
• Mentor junior members of the team and help establish engineering best practices.
• Communicate cost/reliability tradeoffs of design decisions effectively.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related discipline (Masters in EE preferred).
• 8+ years of experience developing complex electronic systems.
• Strong experience with mixed-signal circuit design and embedded hardware.
• Experience designing systems that integrate sensors, imaging devices, communications, or industrial electronics.
• Experience with embedded Linux or microcontroller-based platforms.
• Familiarity with wireless communications, GPS/GNSS, or edge computing devices.
• Experience with cloud computing and fleet management platforms like AWS IoT Core, RemoteIt, etc
• Familiarity with communication protocols such as SPI, IC, UART, Ethernet, CAN, or USB.

• Experience with optical sensing, imaging systems, machine vision, or precision agriculture technologies (preferred).
• Knowledge of design for manufacturability (DFM), design for test (DFT), and regulatory compliance (preferred).

Benefits

InnerPlant provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.  This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

InnerPlant provides an amazing opportunity to work on some of the hardest problems facing humanity and help design the agricultural systems of the future.  We're backed by John Deere, large farmers, and veteran venture capitalists.