Lead Electrical Engineer

Parallel Systems · Los Angeles, CA

  • Senior
  • Full-time
  • $161,000 – $206,000
  • Posted 2026-10-28
  • Confirmed live on 1 November 2026

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Job description

Parallel Systems is pioneering autonomous battery-electric rail vehicles designed to transform freight transportation by shifting portions of the $900 billion U.S. trucking industry onto rail. Our innovative technology offers cleaner, safer, and more efficient logistics solutions. Join our dynamic team and help shape a smarter, greener future for global freight.

Parallel Systems is seeking a Lead Electrical Engineer to lead the design, development, integration, and validation of vehicle electrical systems for our production autonomous battery-electric rail vehicles. This role will provide technical direction for critical electrical architectures and subsystems, including power distribution, traction and braking interfaces, safety-critical control systems, wiring harnesses, and compute/sensor networks.

As the technical lead for vehicle electrical engineering, you will establish system architectures, drive critical design decisions, and oversee electrical system development from concept through production deployment. You will work closely with mechanical, software, autonomy, manufacturing, and external partners to ensure reliable integration across the vehicle while meeting performance, safety, reliability, and regulatory requirements.

The ideal candidate brings extensive experience developing complex electrical systems for automotive, rail, aerospace, or other vehicle-based applications. You are comfortable setting technical direction, resolving complex engineering challenges, establishing engineering standards, and balancing system-level ownership with hands-on design, testing, and integration in a fast-paced hardware development environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead electrical system architecture and development: Own the technical direction, architecture, design, development, integration, and validation of vehicle electrical systems, including power distribution, wiring harnesses, commercial-off-the-shelf hardware, and electrical test infrastructure.

• Establish technical direction: Define electrical system requirements, architecture standards, interface specifications, and design practices. Evaluate technical tradeoffs and drive decisions balancing performance, reliability, safety, cost, and manufacturability.

• Lead safety-critical engineering: Oversee the development and documentation of safety-critical subsystems, including system hazard analyses, Design Failure Mode and Effects Analyses (DFMEAs), risk assessments, and verification and validation strategies.

• Drive cross-functional integration: Lead electrical engineering alignment with mechanical, embedded software, controls, autonomy, and systems engineering teams to ensure seamless integration across vehicle subsystems and dependencies.

• Guide design reviews and technical problem-solving: Lead electrical design reviews, identify technical risks, resolve complex system-level issues, and establish corrective actions through structured debugging and root-cause analysis.

• Own validation and system reliability: Define and oversee hardware bring-up, bench testing, electrical system validation, prototype vehicle integration, fault isolation, and reliability testing.

• Drive production readiness: Lead electrical design maturation from prototype through production, partnering with manufacturing, suppliers, and contract manufacturers on design-for-manufacturing, assembly processes, testability, quality, and production ramp-up.

• Establish engineering processes and standards: Develop repeatable processes for electrical design, requirements traceability, configuration management, validation, and engineering change control.

• Oversee engineering documentation: Ensure electrical schematics, wiring diagrams, bills of materials (BOMs), interface specifications, test reports, and engineering change documentation meet quality and traceability requirements.

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship: Guide engineers through technical challenges, review designs, establish priorities, and promote consistent engineering practices. Help coordinate technical execution and align engineering deliverables with broader vehicle development milestones.

• Manage technical risks and priorities: Identify critical-path electrical engineering risks, prioritize resources and technical activities, and communicate project status, dependencies, and tradeoffs to cross-functional stakeholders.

What Success Looks Like

• 30 Days: You've developed a strong understanding of existing vehicle electrical architectures, subsystem interfaces, and key technical risks. You're identifying architectural gaps, participating in safety and design reviews, and establishing priorities for electrical system development and improvement.

• 60 Days: You're driving the electrical engineering roadmap for a new or upgraded subsystem, aligning requirements and interfaces across disciplines, and establishing design, validation, and compliance strategies. You're guiding technical decisions and

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