Principal Hardware Engineer

Principal Hardware Engineer
Cambridge | 5 days on site
up to £70k

Do you have a passion for the automotive industry?
Are you experienced working in regulated environments?
Do you enjoy being a technical owner, and sharing your knowledge with a developing team?

We’re looking for someone to help develop a high-performing Electronics Hardware team, delivering cutting-edge systems in the automotive sector. This is an opportunity to combine your knowledge of product design, from concept through to production, with your ability to provide direction and mentor the team.

What you’ll be doing:
You will technically lead, mentor, and challenge an electronics hardware team across multiple sites, supporting with product roadmaps and hardware architecture. You’ll take ownership of designs from concept to production, including schematics, layouts, and system-level integration, while collaborating closely with product owners, program managers, and other engineering teams to define milestones, requirements, and project plans. You will work with manufacturing partners to optimise designs for cost and manufacturability, support continuous improvement, develop R&D concepts, ensure compliance with hardware design, testing, and manufacturing processes, and occasionally manage external hardware resources and travel to supplier or customer sites.

What we’re looking for:

• Proven experience in electronic hardware design for regulated industries, ideally automotive.
• Strong grounding in ECU architecture, embedded systems, analogue & digital circuitry, and motor/solenoid electronics.
• Experience taking designs from architecture through to production, including validation, debugging, and design for qualification (EMC/environmental).
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work across multi-disciplinary teams.
• Mentoring, developing, and supporting engineers to deliver high-quality solutions.

Keen to express your interest, or find out more?
Option 1: Click the apply button (don’t worry, we’ll discuss your CV before submitting)
Option 2: Drop me a message on LinkedIn (Rachel Bush – SoCode Recruitment)