We’re working with a highly specialised engineering business developing mission-critical electronic products used in hazardous environments. This is not greenfield R&D only. It’s where design meets reality. Production constraints, compliance, field failures, and customer-specific modifications all collide.

You won’t survive here if you’re purely theoretical or only comfortable in a lab.

What you’ll actually be doing

This role is heavily weighted toward product ownership and lifecycle engineering, not just clean-sheet design.

• Own and support existing electronic products across production, procurement, and field applications
• Design and develop new circuits and systems, while improving legacy designs
• Modify and customise products based on real customer and project requirements
• Diagnose and troubleshoot issues across development, manufacturing, and field environments
• Work closely with production and procurement teams to ensure delivery doesn’t break
• Maintain full engineering documentation. BOMs, PCB files, drawings, manuals
• Analyse and improve products for reliability, manufacturability, and lifecycle performance
• Collaborate with mechanical and software engineers for full system integration
• Ensure designs comply with strict regulatory and certification standards
• Contribute to new product development when required

What you need to bring

If your experience is shallow or siloed, this role will expose it fast.

• 10+ years in electronics design and product lifecycle support
• Strong proficiency in Altium Designer (Altium 365 is a bonus)
• Deep experience in analog and digital schematic design
• Proven track record in multi-layer PCB design (8–12 layers, high-speed, high pin-count BGAs like FPGA)
• Strong understanding of battery systems (Li-ion, Ni-Cd, smart batteries)
• Experience with industrial communication protocols
  • Ethernet (Gbps, RGMII, MDIO)
  • I²C, UART, SPI, CAN, RS485, LVDS
• Embedded hardware experience with microcontrollers (PIC, ARM, STM32)
• Sensor integration (pressure, temperature, etc.)
• Exposure to wireless technologies (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee)

Nice to have but valuable:

• Hazardous area standards (IEC/EN 60079)
• Gas sensing technologies (e.g. methane detection)
• Industrial displays or imaging systems
• FPGA development (Intel/Altera, Verilog)

The reality of this role

This is not a role for someone chasing “cool tech” without responsibility.

You’ll be dealing with:

• Legacy constraints that don’t care about your ideal design
• Production pressures that force trade-offs
• Compliance requirements that limit creativity
• Customers who need solutions, not excuses

If you’ve only worked in isolated R&D or haven’t owned products post-release, you’ll struggle.

Why this is worth your time

• Real ownership. You’re not a small cog in a large machine
• Direct impact on products used in critical environments
• A mix of design, problem-solving, and system-level thinking
• Exposure to complex, regulated engineering challenges most engineers avoid

If you can actually handle both design and reality, I want to speak with you.

Send your CV to simon@runtimerec.com or call 0485991211 for a confidential discussion.