Wright Electric Inc.
Director of Power Electronics Product Delivery
Ballston Spa, NY
·
Full time
Company website
Lead Wright's first major productization program: take Dynamo, our flagship inverter generator, from working prototype to qualified, deployed product.
About Wright Electric Inc.
Description
About Wright
Wright is a 20-person aerospace and defense company building the next generation of power systems — motors, generators, and batteries — for electric and hybrid-electric aircraft and defense platforms. Over the past several years, working under government research contracts, we've developed breakthrough inverter-generator technology that significantly outperforms what's commercially available. We're now transitioning that technology into our first production program for a government customer, and we're investing in the senior engineering leadership to bring it to market.
We are a small team of deep technical experts working on problems that haven't been solved before. The work is hard. The customer is real. The technology matters.
Mission
Lead Wright's first major productization program: take Dynamo, our flagship inverter generator, from working prototype to qualified, deployed product. Build the senior technical leadership the company needs as it scales from R&D into product delivery.
Success in this role requires balancing technical rigor with pragmatic execution and delivery discipline.
Role overview
This is not a pure engineering management role and not a pure program management role.
The Director of Power Electronics Product Delivery owns the technical and program leadership required to deliver Dynamo on a committed customer date. This role owns the architecture, component, protection, and compliance decisions, and owns program execution, schedule, and technical delivery end-to-end.
The ideal candidate has personally led an inverter system — defense, aerospace, EV, solar, or industrial — through the transition from prototype to shipped product, with direct decision-making authority over architecture, qualification strategy, and execution.
Key responsibilities
Product Delivery & Execution
- Own the end-to-end productization of the Dynamo system, from prototype through qualified production release
- Own program execution, schedule, budget, and milestone delivery; drive scope and architecture tradeoffs to hit committed customer dates
- Identify technical and program risks early and drive mitigation
- Lead design reviews, risk assessments, and design freeze decisions
Technical Leadership
- Lead technical decision-making across: Topology selection and validation
- Protection schemes (faults, short-circuit, ground fault, isolation, thermal)
- EMI/EMC mitigation and layout strategy
- Thermal design and derating philosophy
- Controls and system stability
- Reliability, lifetime, and abuse-case handling
- Provide hands-on technical leadership during architecture reviews, integration, debugging, and qualification
- Command credibility with senior engineers in detailed technical discussions
System Integration
- Drive integration across inverter, controls, thermal systems, generator, and balance-of-system hardware
- Ensure incremental validation of subsystems rather than late-stage "big bang" integration
- Support prototype builds, pilot builds, field deployments, and customer demonstrations
Qualification & Manufacturing
- Drive qualification to applicable defense and commercial standards, including MIL-STD-461 (EMI/EMC), MIL-STD-704 (power quality), MIL-STD-810 (environmental), and where relevant DO-160, UL 2200, UL 1741, and IEC 62109
- Serve as the primary technical interface with certification bodies, test labs, manufacturing partners, and suppliers
- Define and enforce design for manufacturability and cost-down strategies
- Support the transition from prototype builds into repeatable manufacturing
Team Leadership
- Build and lead a growing power electronics and systems engineering team
- Bring the operating cadence, design review rigor, and program structure that turn deep technical work into shipped product
Required experience
- 10+ years in power electronics, electrification, or inverter-based systems
- Direct experience taking an inverter from prototype to commercial or defense delivery
- Prior technical decision authority (not just contributor) on at least one shipped inverter product
- Background in one or more of: Inverter generators
- EV traction inverters or onboard chargers
- Aerospace or defense power electronics
- Electric aviation propulsion
- Solar inverters (string or hybrid)
- Industrial motor drives or UPS systems
- Hands-on experience with: High-power switching devices (SiC and/or IGBT)
- Gate drive design and protection
- EMI/EMC mitigation
- Thermal management (liquid or advanced air cooling)
- Power electronics integration and debugging
- Demonstrated experience leading a product through certification and qualification testing
Strongly preferred
- Defense or aerospace power electronics qualification experience (MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-704, MIL-STD-810, DO-160)
- Experience scaling from low-volume to production manufacturing
- History of making pragmatic tradeoffs under schedule and cost pressure — including descoping features to hit a committed date
- Comfort saying "no" to elegant designs that won't survive certification or production
- Comfort operating in a fast-moving, resource-constrained startup environment where priorities and constraints evolve quickly
Ideal candidate profile
This role is ideal for someone who:
- Has shipped real hardware systems, not just prototypes
- Combines deep technical credibility in power electronics with delivery discipline
- Is comfortable making difficult tradeoffs to hit delivery milestones
- Wants meaningful ownership over a critical product and a critical organization transition
- Is energized by hard technical problems and real deployment pressure
Compensation:
- Base salary: $210,000 – $260,000 depending on experience
- Meaningful early-stage equity
- Standard benefits package
- Relocation support available
Salary
$210,000 - $260,000 per year