Hardware Electronics Engineer (UAV)

Details:Location: Leerdam, Netherlands (hybrid or remote)Employment: full-time or B2BLevel: Middle / SeniorWe're partnering with a defence technology company developing and mass-producing autonomous systems for real-world deployment. This is a full-cycle hardware business where R&D, engineering, manufacturing and field operations sit close together, and where products evolve continuously based on direct operational feedback. The company is already operating at meaningful scale, with a growing ecosystem spanning UAVs, unmanned ground systems and communication technologies. As the product line expands, they're strengthening the hardware team. We're looking for a Hardware Electronics Engineer to join this team.The Role: You'll design electronics for UAV components, primarily flight controllers and ESCs, and own the full hardware cycle from schematic to production-ready PCB. You'll take boards through layout, manufacturing outputs, DFM with fabs and assembly houses, and into the lab for bring-up and debugging, with your designs going into products that are built at volume and used in the field. For an engineer with a background in power electronics or motor control, this is an opportunity to work on compact, high-current boards where design decisions have direct, visible impact.Responsibilities:Design schematics for flight controllers, ESCs and related UAV electronics: component selection, power stages, MCU circuits, sensors and interfacesCreate multilayer PCB layouts in Altium, including high-current power routing, thermal management and signal integrityPrepare manufacturing outputs: Gerbers, BOM, pick-and-place, assembly drawingsSupport the DFM/DFA phase together with PCB fabs and assembly housesBring up and debug prototypes, and fix issues found in testingTake part in peer design reviews, both giving and receiving feedbackMaintain design documentation and component librariesRequirements:3+ years of hands-on hardware design experience (schematic and PCB layout)Strong working knowledge of Altium DesignerExperience with multilayer PCBs and power electronics: DC-DC converters, MOSFET stages, current sensingExperience with microcontroller-based designs (e.g. STM32) and common interfaces: SPI, I2C, UART, CANPractical understanding of DFM/DFA and work with PCB manufacturersLab skills: oscilloscope, power supply, multimeter, soldering and reworkTechnical English sufficient to read datasheets and write documentationWould be a plus: direct experience with drone flight controllers or ESCs (BLDC motor drives, FOC); familiarity with ArduPilot, PX4 or Betaflight hardware ecosystems; EMC/EMI-aware design for compact, high-current boards; design for harsh environments (vibration, temperature); basic Python for test automation.Find Jobs in Netherlands on Arbeitnow