Staff Engineer, Hardware Design

As a PCB Layout Staff Engineer, you will lead the physical design and layout of complex printed circuit boards from schematic capture through to manufacturing. You will collaborate with hardware, power, mechanical and manufacturing engineering teams to ensure designs meet strict signal integrity, thermal and mechanical constraints. You will also be responsible for enhancing design guidelines, participating in design reviews and occasionally mentoring junior staff., Performs tasks such as, but not limited to, the following:

• Complex Board Design: Execute the layout, routing and component placement of high-density, multi-layer PCBs (often 12 to 28+ layers) using advanced CAD software (e.g., Cadence Allegro).
• High-Speed & Constraints: Route high-speed digital, analog, and mixed-signal circuits while strictly adhering to complex design constraints, including impedance control, length matching, and differential pairs.
• Power Delivery & Constraints: Collaborate with the Power Design Team to implement and optimize the Power Delivery Network (PDN). This involves executing board layouts that satisfy voltage drop (IR) and impedance targets, optimizing decoupling capacitor placements, and managing thermal constraints in high-current AI hardware designs.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work alongside electrical, mechanical, and thermal engineers to optimize board layout for form factor, thermal management, and overall system performance.
• Design for Manufacturing (DFx): Ensure all design comply with Design for Manufacturability (DFM), Design for Assembly (DFA), and Design for Testability (DFT) guidelines.
• Documentation & Release: Generate, review and manage complete manufacturing release packages, including Gerber/ODB++ files, fabrication drawings, assembly drawings, pick-and-place data, and Bill of Materials (BOM).
• Compliance & Standards: Apply deep knowledge of IPC standards and ensure layouts comply with EMI/EMC regulations and safety standards.
• Mentorship: Lead layout design reviews, establish internal best practices, and provide technical guidance to junior layout designers.
• Customer & Project Coordination: Actively participates in design reviews and offers technical feedback to develop product requirements. Additionally, participates in project planning and scheduling, providing input on design issues, quality, and materials.

• Strong understanding of signal integrity (SI) and power integrity (PI) principles
• Familiarity with blind/buried vias, micro-vias, and HDI (High-Density interconnect) technologies
• Thorough understanding of the PCB fabrication and PCBA assembly processes
• Expert-level proficiency in industry-standard PCB design tools (e.g., Cadence Allegro 22.x and up is preferred)
• Strong knowledge of PCB & PCBA manufacturing process
• Excellent knowledge of industry and quality standards, knowledge of IPC standards is preferred
• Strong knowledge of IT platforms and database design
• Familiar with EMC & EMI layout requirements
• Able to summarize the layout experience from the customer’s requirements
• Highly self-motivated with the ability to manage multiple overlapping project schedules in a fast-paced environment
• Strong communication skills for interacting with customers, vendors, and internal teams

Physical Demands

• Duties of this position are performed in a normal office environment.
• Duties may require extended periods of sitting and sustained visual concentration on a computer monitor or on numbers and other detailed data.
• Repetitive manual movements (e.g., data entry, using a computer mouse, using a calculator, etc.) are frequently required.
• Occasional travel may be required.

Typical Experience

• 10+ years of dedicated experience in PCB layout and design, specifically with complex enterprise, high-performance data storage, networking infrastructure, or server and telecommunications hardware.

Typical Education

Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics, or a related field (or equivalent extensive industry experience).

Celestica (NYSE, TSX: CLS) enables the world’s best brands. Through our recognized customer-centric approach, we partner with leading companies in Aerospace and Defense, Communications, Enterprise, HealthTech, Industrial, Capital Equipment and Energy to deliver solutions for their most complex challenges. As a leader in design, manufacturing, hardware platform and supply chain solutions, Celestica brings global expertise and insight at every stage of product development - from drawing board to full-scale production and after-market services for products from advanced medical devices, to highly engineered aviation systems, to next-generation hardware platform solutions for the Cloud. Headquartered in Toronto, with talented teams spanning 40+ locations in 13 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia, we imagine, develop and deliver a better future with our customers.