Electrical Engineering & Embedded Systems Intern

Summary

ITERRA is building a passive, edge-native sensing system for detecting and classifying low-altitude unmanned aircraft in denied and degraded environments. The Electrical Engineering & Embedded Systems Intern will own electrical aspects of sensor hardware, including power distribution, field power, board integration, harnessing, noise mitigation, instrumentation, field support, and documentation.

Responsibilities

• Power distribution and budget. From the source to every board: rails, regulation, protection, inrush, and a measured power budget per subsystem. You find out what the unit actually draws instead of trusting a datasheet
• Field power. Battery sizing, charging, solar and vehicle power, runtime under real load and real temperature. A rig that dies four hours into an eight-hour collection is a failed rig
• Bring-up and integration. Jetson carrier, SDR boards, LNAs, camera modules, GPS. You get them powered, talking, and stable, and you are the one who finds out why a board that worked yesterday does not today
• Harnessing and connectors. RF cable runs, SMA, TNC and N-type selection, phase-matched lengths on direction-finding pairs, strain relief, service loops, and a harness a technician can replace in the field with gloves on
• Noise and interference. Grounding, shielding, and layout discipline so the digital side does not desense the receiver. You measure the noise floor before and after, and you report both
• Bench instrumentation. Oscilloscope, multimeter, power supply, electronic load, spectrum analyzer. Repeatable written procedure. If a result cannot be reproduced next month, it is not a result
• Field support. You come to the range. You set up, you troubleshoot live, and you carry the gear
• Documentation. Wiring diagrams, pinouts, power budgets, and a bring-up procedure someone else can follow without calling you
• You scope your own work, commit to dates, say early and loudly when a date is at risk, and integrate with the rest of the stack instead of handing over a part and walking away

Skills

• Pursuing or holding a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
• * **You have built something electrical and made it work.** A board, a power supply, a robot, a drone, an instrumented project. Tell us what failed the first time, why, and what you changed. A project where everything worked tells us nothing
• * **Circuit fundamentals, applied.** DC and AC, power and thermal, regulation, grounding and return paths, decoupling. You reason about a circuit instead of looking it up mid-conversation
• * **Bench hands.** Oscilloscope, multimeter, bench supply, soldering iron. You can probe a live board and find the problem
• * **Embedded comfort.** Microcontroller or single-board computer work. Reading a datasheet, wiring a peripheral over I2C, SPI or UART, and getting it to respond. Python or C
• * **Linux comfort.** Shell, ssh, git. You can work on a headless machine without a GUI
• * **Willing to be outside.** Field days are part of this seat, not an exception to it
• * **Juvempleo eligibility.** Ages 18 to 29, Puerto Rico resident, U.S. citizen, minimum 2.00 GPA, recently graduated or about to graduate. Placement is made by DDEC, not by ITERRA alone
• * **Method over conclusions.** If the measurement says the product underperforms, we need to hear it from you first, and we will act on it, not argue with it
• * U.S. person under ITAR
• * Onsite in Hatillo, Puerto Rico, and in the field, outdoors, carrying gear
• PCB design (KiCad, Altium, Eagle)
• RF cable and connector practice
• Battery management and charging circuits
• EMI and EMC basics
• Power measurement and logging
• Drone or UAS hands-on time
• Clearance eligibility
• Spanish

Qualifications

Must Haves

• Pursuing or holding a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
• * **You have built something electrical and made it work.** A board, a power supply, a robot, a drone, an instrumented project. Tell us what failed the first time, why, and what you changed. A project where everything worked tells us nothing
• * **Circuit fundamentals, applied.** DC and AC, power and thermal, regulation, grounding and return paths, decoupling. You reason about a circuit instead of looking it up mid-conversation
• * **Bench hands.** Oscilloscope, multimeter, bench supply, soldering iron. You can probe a live board and find the problem
• * **Embedded comfort.** Microcontroller or single-board computer work. Reading a datasheet, wiring a peripheral over I2C, SPI or UART, and getting it to respond. Python or C
• * **Linux comfort.** Shell, ssh, git. You can work on a headless machine without a GUI
• * **Willing to be outside.** Field days are part of this seat, not an exception to it
• * **Juvempleo eligibility.** Ages 18 to 29, Puerto Rico resident, U.S. citizen, minimum 2.00 GPA, recently graduated or about to graduate. Placement is made by DDEC, not by ITERRA alone
• * **Method over conclusions.** If the measurement says the product underperforms, we need to hear it from you first, and we will act on it, not argue with it
• * U.S. person under ITAR
• * Onsite in Hatillo, Puerto Rico, and in the field, outdoors, carrying gear

Nice to Haves

• PCB design (KiCad, Altium, Eagle)
• RF cable and connector practice
• Battery management and charging circuits
• EMI and EMC basics
• Power measurement and logging
• Drone or UAS hands-on time
• Clearance eligibility
• Spanish

Benefits

• Real hardware from week one. You are not shadowing anybody. You get a slice of the rig, a date, and the same standard of review the engineers get.
• Direct access to the CTO and the founder. No layers. Your work is reviewed by the people who will ship it.
• Your work goes to the field. Whatever you build gets carried outside, mounted, and run against live targets while you are still here.
• A portfolio you can show anybody. Code, measurements, and a documented result you were responsible for, on a fielded defense system built in Puerto Rico.
• First look at a full-time seat. We hire from this bench. Performing here is the shortest path onto the payroll.
• Positions may also be eligible for equity in iTerra Solutions, Inc. and company-sponsored health benefits. Specific eligibility is confirmed at offer.