Lead Hardware Engineer

📍 Location:Norfolk NR14 8FP

💼 Employment Type: Full-Time, Contract

⏰ Hours: 37.5 hours/week (Monday - Friday, 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM)

💰 Rate: £450 / Day Rate ( Outside IR35)

• Interview Process: 1.
  💻 Stage 1: Microsoft Teams interview
  🏢 Stage 2: On-site interview

🚀 About the Role

Are you ready to take technical ownership of next-generation electric drive technologies?

We are seeking a proactive and skilled Lead Hardware Engineer to drive the design, development, and delivery of innovative automotive hardware. Operating in a high-impact, collaborative engineering environment, you will lead a dedicated team of hardware engineers to bring high-voltage, high-volume electric drive systems from initial concept to full production release.

In this role, you will champion technical excellence, ensuring all hardware solutions meet strict cost, quality, timing, and scalability targets through robust engineering practices like DFM, DFC, and FMEA.

• 🛠️ Technical Leadership & Delivery: Lead the concept-to-production engineering of high-volume automotive hardware, including 600V power electronics, control electronics, 3-phase motor drive inverters, bi-directional DC-DC converters, and AC mains chargers.
• 👥 Team Management & Mentorship: Guide, mentor, and task-allocate a team of hardware engineers, fostering technical growth and aligning day-to-day progress with key project milestones.
• 📐 Architecture & Design Optimization: Define and refine scalable, cost-effective, and highly reliable hardware architectures tailored for light automotive production.
• 📉 Cost & Manufacturability Focus: Drive Design for Manufacture (DFM), Design for Cost (DFC), value engineering, component selection, and platform reuse to achieve competitive unit costs and efficient production.
• ⚠️ Risk & Quality Management: Lead FMEA sessions, perform root-cause analyses, manage technical risks, and ensure hardware aligns with all durability, safety, and regulatory compliance standards.
• 🧪 Validation & Testing: Support the creation and execution of Design Verification Plans (DVP), reviewing test results and mitigating any hardware issues identified during validation.
• 🤝 Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with Project Managers, software, mechanical, test, and system engineering teams to streamline hardware-software interfaces, integration, and overall product delivery.
• 📋 Process & Documentation: Maintain rigorous design documentation, configuration management, and structured development methodologies to continuously elevate product quality.

• ⚡ Power Electronics Expertise: Proven experience designing complex 600V power electronic hardware systems, including schematic design, component selection, and architectural definition.
• 🚗 Automotive High-Volume Production: Deep understanding of high-volume automotive manufacturing, supply chain dynamics, cost reduction strategies, and scalability.
• 📊 Leadership & Project Execution: Strong track record of leading engineering teams, managing project schedules, mitigating risks, and delivering complex hardware on time and on budget.
• ✅ Validation & Compliance: Expertise in test strategies, hardware debugging, and compliance with automotive safety, EMC, and environmental regulations.
• 🔗 Cross-Disciplinary Integration: Demonstrated ability to collaborate smoothly with software/firmware, mechanical, manufacturing, and quality teams to ensure seamless system integration.

Randstad Technologies is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.