Sr Staff/Principal Application Engineer

Job Title

Sr Staff/Principal Application Engineer

Role Summary

Senior hands-on, customer-facing applications engineer focused on power electronics and power management systems for Renesas India. Acts as the technical lead between customers, field teams, and internal design groups, owning application architecture, reference designs, validation methodology, and customer debug.

The role influences product decisions through system-level insight, mentors other applications engineers, and represents Renesas in technical customer engagements.

Experience Level

Senior-level. The role expects extensive domain experience (the posting specifies 12+ years in the power management space).

Responsibilities

Core responsibilities include customer engagement, reference-design ownership, system-level analysis, and lab validation.

• Serve as primary technical interface for key customers on power-related applications (industrial, light EV, inverter/UPS, consumer power, energy storage).
• Lead design-in, bring-up, and debug activities at customer sites and Renesas labs.
• Diagnose complex system-level issues across power stage, control loops, sensing, firmware interaction, EMI, and thermal behavior.
• Architect and develop reference designs, evaluation platforms, and demonstrators using Renesas power products.
• Own schematic review, component selection, PCB guidance, and layout best practices.
• Define validation plans that reflect real-world corner cases and driving real-customer test coverage.
• Perform and guide system modelling and simulation (SIMPLIS, PLECS, SPICE) and evaluate trade-offs with BOM cost in mind.
• Operate and maintain lab equipment; develop automation scripts (Python/C) to accelerate validation and characterization.
• Mentor junior/mid-level applications engineers and help define team best practices and debug methodologies.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills, experience, and behavioral capabilities for success in the role.

• 12+ years of experience in the power management domain, including customer-facing technical problem solving with semiconductor companies.
• Deep understanding of power topologies (buck, boost, buck-boost, isolated where relevant), control-loop theory and compensation, thermal design and power-loss modeling, and EMI/EMC at board and system level.
• Hands-on lab debugging and characterization experience with power supplies, electronic loads, digital oscilloscopes, spectrum/network analysers, waveform generators, and thermal setups.
• Experience with circuit simulators such as SIMPLIS, PLECS, or SPICE.
• Programming proficiency in Python or C for automation, data analysis, and testbench development.
• Expertise in board-level analog/digital circuit design, schematic review, PCB CAD tools, and component selection.
• Ability to perform failure analysis, root-cause investigations, and provide structured feedback to product/design teams.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, and presentation skills; ability to influence stakeholders and lead technical discussions.
• Willingness to travel as required for customer engagements.
• Proven ability to mentor and build technical teams; product-ownership mindset and ability to operate autonomously.

Nice-to-have:

• Familiarity with FEA tools for thermal/power-loss modeling.
• Experience or basic knowledge of AEC-Q, IATF, and ISO 26262 (FuSa).
• Experience with data analysis tools such as JMP or advanced Excel usage.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electronics Engineering or a related discipline (as stated in the posting).

About the Company

Company: Renesas

Headquarters: Hitachinaka, Japan

Renesas is a global leader in embedded semiconductor solutions, providing high-quality products across automotive, industrial, infrastructure, and IoT sectors. With over 22,000 employees in more than 30 countries, the company focuses on scalable solutions that enhance user experience and drive innovation while committed to sustainability and energy efficiency.