Staff Materials Design Engineer, Electrical Insulation, Energy

What to Expect

Tesla is currently seeking a motivated and accomplished Staff Materials Engineer to support our Energy Hardware product line. You will be responsible for identifying, developing, evaluating, testing and qualifying materials needed for electrical device insulation. Additional responsibilities include driving engineering tradeoffs, including reliability, cost, and manufacturability. Experience with typical electrical insulation materials (semi-conductors, ceramics, dielectric fluids, encapsulation, dielectrics) is required.

What You’ll Do

• Evaluate and qualify materials including dielectrics, semi-conductors and semi-conducting coatings, ceramics, and other insulating materials, working closely with the electrical/mechanical design, manufacturing and supply chain teams
• Engage with and manage external partners and vendors for materials development and drive implementation into production
• Perform insulation characterization/performance evaluation including partial discharge (PD) measurements and electrical properties characterization
• Conduct Failure Analysis (FA) to understand and correct materials and design shortcomings. Support the design team in analyzing trade-offs via FMEA
• Understand application-relevant electrical properties of the insulation material from both insulation and loss perspective. Develop corresponding structure-property relationships
• In collaboration with reliability engineers, understand degradation pathways mechanically and electrically via reliability testing on materials and components under environment conditions
• Determine and support process development and optimization for the prototyping and manufacturing processes of the insulation materials
• Write materials specifications, test procedures, SOPs
• Develop novel high volume production methods to efficiently process the insulation

What You’ll Bring

• Master's Degree in Materials Science Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Physics, or Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent experience
• 8+ years of industry experience in applications requiring electrical insulation is required
• Proficient with statistical software, sql data mining, scripting languages, and FEA (electric field and loss simulations)
• Exceptional organization, cross discipline collaboration and communication skills
• Excellent problem-solving skills
• Detailed-oriented, able to work both independently and in a collaborative project-focused environment, prompt and dependable, and excellent communication skills
• Resilient in the context of a fast-paced and fluid environment
• Comfortable in doing more with less and mission driven