Senior Electronics PCB & ECAD Design Engineer - RF & Mixed Signal (m/f/d)
Design · Full-time
Munich, Germany
Posted on Oct 15, 2026
Hive Robotics is building Europe’s first full-stack orchestration platform for unmanned systems: connecting, controlling, and commanding multi-vendor drone and robot swarms. Our RF communication systems are Made in Germany, deployed on active frontlines, and targeting a highly valued tactical communication market with zero sovereign alternatives today.
As our Senior Electronics Hardware Engineer, you own our electronic designs end to end: from requirements through schematic capture, PCB layout, and manufacturing release to bring-up and debugging. You take a hardware requirement and independently turn it into a robust, manufacturable PCB assembly, spot problems early, and keep projects moving without waiting for direction. This is a hands-on individual contributor role. Most importantly, you enjoy designing hardware yourself and seeing it ship. You report into our CTO organization.
Bring-up, rework, and close work with mechanical, firmware, and production happen hands-on in our Munich office, so we expect you on site most days of the week.Schematic & PCB Design
Must Have
As our Senior Electronics Hardware Engineer, you own our electronic designs end to end: from requirements through schematic capture, PCB layout, and manufacturing release to bring-up and debugging. You take a hardware requirement and independently turn it into a robust, manufacturable PCB assembly, spot problems early, and keep projects moving without waiting for direction. This is a hands-on individual contributor role. Most importantly, you enjoy designing hardware yourself and seeing it ship. You report into our CTO organization.
Bring-up, rework, and close work with mechanical, firmware, and production happen hands-on in our Munich office, so we expect you on site most days of the week.Schematic & PCB Design
- Own electronic hardware designs from requirements to manufacturing release, including schematics and design reviews
- Select components based on performance, availability, lifecycle, cost, and manufacturability
- Place and route multilayer boards, and define stack-ups, design rules, controlled-impedance requirements, and layout constraints
- Review designs for manufacturability, reliability, EMC, signal and power integrity, and thermal behavior where relevant
- Design with certification in mind: support EMC and radio (CE/RED) pre-compliance and certification testing with external labs, and feed the findings back into the design
- Create and maintain schematic symbols, footprints, padstacks, and ECAD libraries
- Define and maintain electrical, physical, and manufacturing design rule sets
- Keep engineering data clean: design documentation, revision history, and versioning that let anyone pick up a design later and improve it
- Shape the transition from Cadence OrCAD/Allegro to Altium Designer for new developments, while keeping existing designs maintainable
- Improve engineering workflows and automate repetitive tasks where it pays off
- Generate, review, and release manufacturing outputs and technical documentation
- Work directly with PCB fabrication and PCBA assembly partners on stack-ups, fabrication constraints, assembly guidelines, and production requirements
- Review BOMs and qualify alternative components based on availability, lifecycle, and technical requirements, together with Operations
- Make sure designs scale from prototype runs to serial production volumes
- Bring up, debug, and validate boards, including burn-in testing, soldering, and rework
- Work closely with mechanical and embedded firmware engineers through design, integration, and bring-up
- Reproduce and qualify hardware issues from production and the field so they get fixed at the root cause
- Handle sensitive and export-controlled design data in line with our dual-use export control requirements
Must Have
- 5+ years of professional experience in electronic hardware and PCB development
- Degree in electrical engineering, electronics, or a comparable technical foundation
- A track record of independently taking PCBs from schematic to manufacturing release: boards you designed that went into production
- Strong schematic design and component selection skills, working confidently from datasheets
- Strong PCB layout skills on multilayer and high-density boards, including blind and buried vias, built on a solid understanding of grounding, power distribution, differential interfaces, controlled impedance, and high-speed design
- Practical understanding of PCB fabrication and PCBA assembly, including direct work with manufacturers on stack-ups, fabrication rules, assembly requirements, and production issues
- Hands-on lab skills: board bring-up, debugging, lab equipment, soldering, and rework
- Strong experience in at least one professional ECAD environment, such as Altium Designer, Cadence OrCAD/Allegro, Siemens Xpedition, or comparable. Deep expertise in both Altium and Cadence is not required
- Ownership mindset: you drive designs forward without continuous supervision, and an undocumented design change is a problem for you, not a shortcut
- Fluent English (German is a plus)
- Willingness to undergo security vetting where projects require it
- Based in Munich or willing to relocate
- Altium Designer and BOM Portal, our platform for new developments, and Cadence OrCAD/Allegro, which our existing products are built on
- Experience with BOM management or component lifecycle tools
- RF and wireless electronics or communication systems, the core of what we build
- Ethernet and high-speed digital interfaces, power electronics, or embedded systems
- EMC/EMI-conscious design and experience taking products through EMC and radio certification (CE/RED)
- Electronics for robotics, UAVs, or other ruggedized systems, ideally in defense, aerospace, or another regulated environment
- Connector selection, wiring harness, and pinout definition
- Scripting or engineering automation