Electronic Engineer at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

About the job:

The CSIR has a vacancy for Electronic Engineer in the Landward Sciences Impact Area within the Defence and Security Cluster. The incumbent will be responsible to support the Impact Area by managing and working on projects through their life cycle and to effectively support the client with research and development (R&D) outputs, field experiments, training and operational requirements.  This will include product design, implementation of tests, measurements and evaluation capabilities during the short event activities such as explosives testing. This position is based in Pretoria.

Key responsibilities:

• Provide specialist technical guidance to all team members regarding product development, product design, test procedures, test equipment, conceptual design of experiments as well as design and development of specialised electronic devices;
• Provide mentorship to personnel involved in TME functions;
• Manage test, measurement and evaluation (TME) SET capacity and capability to ensure that appropriate test methodologies are followed, and accurate data is captured;
• Ensure the safe and effective operation of equipment by authorised and trained personnel;
• Train new personnel in the maintenance and operation of specialised equipment;
• Apply diagnostic skills to troubleshoot and repair malfunctioning equipment;
• Design and manufacture specialised devices not readily available commercially for TME operations;
• Interpret and innovate to address requirements/inputs from researchers or applicators to conceptually design new instrumentation;
• Manufacture and test specialised devices for inclusion in research methodologies;
• Participate in the development and declaration of technology demonstrators, the writing of papers and moderation of reports;
• Ensure there is corporate governance in terms of financial, labour, procurement and environmental laws, regulations, and policies (EHS, OHS, Security) Intellectual Property creation, management and transfer in accordance with contracts, regulations and policies.

Qualifications, skills and experience:

• A Bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering with at least five years’ experience in analogue electronics including analogue components, their design and integration into bespoke testing electronics and the simulation;
• An Honours degree in electronic engineering will be an added advantage;
• Must have experience in building high-speed low noise differential instrumentation amplifiers;

Demonstrate solid knowledge in the following:  

• Environmental sensors (pressure, light, temperature, etc.) and signal conditioning thereof;
• Peripheral interfacing to microprocessors/ microcontrollers/PC /laptop and data acquisition systems (DAQ);
• Signal processing techniques such as averaging, integration, FFT, filtering, etc;
• Proficiency in the setup, usage and post-processing of specialised electronic test instrumentation such as oscilloscopes, high speed DAQs, medium to high-speed cameras; etc;
• Proficient in fault finding and problem solving in high level electronics;
• Familiar with standard quality processes such as ISO9000 and ISO 17025;
• Ability to write documents i.e. reports, test instructions, user requirements etc;
• Must be computer literate;
• All international qualifications require an evaluation report/certificate issued by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).