Senior Associate Electrical Engineer-Operations

Acron Aviation designs, engineers, and manufactures certified avionics systems that support safety-critical flight operations across commercial and military aviation. Within Avionics, the Displays product line develops and sustains advanced cockpit display systems that provide pilots with the critical information needed to navigate, monitor aircraft systems, and make informed decisions in complex operating environments. Our portfolio includes primary flight displays, multi-function displays, engine indication and crew alerting systems (EICAS), mission displays, and integrated cockpit visualization solutions deployed across commercial, military, and rotorcraft platforms. This work is performed in highly regulated environments and demands deep expertise in avionics systems, hardware and software development, human factors engineering, certification, and safety-critical product design.

At Acron, our ambition is to relentlessly reimagine and reshape the value chains through which we deliver results to our customers, suppliers, and stakeholder communities, all in pursuit of innovations that create safer skies. Across the Avionics Business Unit, our employees strive to achieve world-class results by putting customers first, owning outcomes, moving fast, and speaking candidly.

We are seeking a Senior Electrical Engineer to join the Displays Zero Defect team at our Grand Rapids, Michigan facility. This engineer will be the team’s electrical design subject matter expert, working alongside Product Quality, Manufacturing, and Test Engineering to identify and permanently resolve defects across the production lifecycle, including supplier, factory, integration, calibration, and test-related issues.

The role is centered on electrical design defect resolution. You will apply hands-on electronics and Circuit Card Assembly (CCA) expertise to determine whether recurring defects are driven by schematic design, component selection, circuit behavior, PCB layout, design margin, environmental sensitivity, manufacturability, or testability. You will collaborate with Design Engineering and Operations to validate root causes, implement corrective actions, and strengthen product robustness, yield, quality, and cost performance.

Key Responsibilities:

• Electrical Design Defect Resolution
• Lead technical investigation of recurring defects with suspected electrical or electronic design causes.
• Analyze schematics, PCB/CCA layouts, component specifications, circuit behavior, interfaces, tolerances, and test data to identify failure mechanisms.
• Determine whether failures originate from design, component, supplier, manufacturing, environmental, test, or system interactions.
• Identify design-margin, component-derating, signal-integrity, thermal, layout-sensitivity, and test-access issues that affect product quality and yield.
• Develop technically sound recommendations that improve product robustness, manufacturability, and testability.
• Zero Defect Team Support
• Serve as the electrical engineering subject matter expert on the Displays Zero Defect team alongside Product Quality, Manufacturing, and Test Engineering.
• Assess defect Paretos and production data to identify patterns that warrant electrical design investigation.
• Support investigation of defects across suppliers, incoming material, manufacturing, integration, calibration, test, and final acceptance.
• Contribute electrical design expertise to A3, RCCA, 5-Why, Fishbone, and PDCA problem-solving activities led by members of the Zero Defect team.
• Help the team distinguish symptoms from root causes and select corrective actions that prevent recurrence rather than rely on inspection, rework, or containment.
• Corrective Action & Design Improvement
• Partner with Design Engineering to define, review, implement, and validate design-related corrective actions.
• Plan and support technical evaluations, experiments, and testing needed to confirm root-cause hypotheses.
• Assess the effectiveness of corrective actions using defect recurrence, RTY/FPY, retest, rework, and failure data.
• Provide design-informed recommendations for component changes, circuit improvements, layout updates, process controls, screening strategies, test conditions, and work instructions.
• Capture lessons learned and support application of improvements across related products and future designs.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Business Impact
• Work closely with Design, Product Quality, Manufacturing, Test, Supply Chain, Operations, and Program teams to resolve complex product issues.
• Translate complex electrical findings into clear technical conclusions, risks, and recommended actions for both technical and business stakeholders.
• Prioritize technical work based on safety, product risk, defect recurrence, yield, delivery, and cost impact.
• Identify opportunities to reduce cost of poor quality through permanent elimination of recurring electrical and design-related defects.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a closely related engineering discipline.
• 2+ years of experience in electrical design, hardware engineering, sustaining engineering, product engineering, failure analysis, or a related electronics role.
• Hands-on experience troubleshooting electronic assemblies, Circuit Card Assemblies, or complex electrical systems.
• Ability to interpret schematics, PCB layouts, component data sheets, design requirements, tolerance information, and test results.
• Experience investigating product failures, developing root-cause hypotheses, and validating corrective actions through analysis or testing.
• Working knowledge of structured problem-solving methods such as A3, RCCA, 5-Why, Fishbone, 8D, or PDCA.
• Ability to collaborate and influence across Design Engineering, Manufacturing, Test, Quality, Supply Chain, and Operations.
• Experience working in a regulated or high-reliability industry such as aerospace, defense, medical, automotive, or industrial electronics.

Additional Qualifications:

• Experience with avionics, displays, recorders, surveillance systems, or other high-reliability electronic products.
• Practical CCA design experience, including schematic development or review, component selection, PCB layout review, design-margin analysis, or design verification.
• Experience supporting electronics in production, sustaining engineering, reliability engineering, or manufacturing failure analysis.
• Familiarity with Design for Manufacturing (DFM), Design for Test (DFT), and common electronics manufacturing processes.
• Knowledge of IPC Class 3 workmanship expectations and AS9100-regulated environments.
• Familiarity with electronic failure mechanisms such as solder-joint reliability, thermal stress, component derating, intermittent connections, layout-induced sensitivity, tolerance stack-up, and test-induced failures.
• Exposure to Lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, or formal Zero Defect operating systems.