Job Title: Electronics Bench Technician (PCB Assembly, Rework and Prototype Build)

Location: Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire

Salary: £35,000 to £50,000 plus benefits, depending on experience

Working Pattern: On site 4.5 days a week (half day Friday), with the odd day at home for paperwork

Our client is an R&D led technology business near Milton Keynes. They are working on a concept that one of the largest technology firms on the planet tried to crack about ten years ago and failed. The idea wasn’t wrong; the technology of the day simply wasn’t up to it. A decade on, the advances in electronics have caught up, and with a genuinely remarkable team of engineers our client is making it work. What they are building will change how a great deal of the technical world operates.

The business is past the theory stage. Their first product is about to enter production, and several more are coming through the prototype phase behind it. There are a number of design engineers producing proof of concept boards at the same time, and all of them need building, testing and modifying quickly. Waiting weeks for a prototype house to populate a board isn’t an option, so the work is done in house, by hand, and that’s where you come in.

You’ll be the right hand of a highly experienced senior technician who has been doing this for the best part of four decades. Put simply, he needs a second pair of skilled hands, somebody he can give a job to with confidence and know it’ll come back done properly.

This is a hands on bench technician role. Your skill with a soldering iron matters far more to them than certificates on the wall. Day to day you’ll be:

• Populating PCBs by hand from scratch, both through hole and surface mount, down to 0201 and on boards with up to 3oz copper planes
• Reworking, repairing and modifying PCB assemblies using specialist soldering, rework and inspection equipment
• Working under a microscope as needed
• Building test equipment and test fixtures, including bed of nails rigs
• Making up cable looms and wiring harnesses to specification, fitting wires and crimping terminals
• Doing box builds and mechanical assembly and disassembly of products
• Working accurately from BOMs, assembly drawings and work instructions
• Recording inspection and rework results and documenting your work properly
• Sourcing BOM components, using online ordering portals and raising purchase orders
• Following ESD procedures and keeping your workstation clean and well organised
• Supporting the wider engineering team with whatever turns up, which will vary from day to day

What You’ll Need

• Solid, demonstrable experience of PCB assembly, hand soldering and rework, both PTH and SMD
• A good understanding of component polarity and orientation, and a real eye for detail
• Experience of wiring, cable looms, box builds or test equipment fabrication
• Confidence with standard test equipment and hand tools
• The resourcefulness to take on something you haven’t seen before, work it out and get it done without being led by the hand
• Good organisation, and the ability to juggle a workload whose priorities change regularly
• Awareness of health and safety and ESD good practice
• Working knowledge of MS Office, Excel and Word in particular

Desirable, but not essential:

• BGA rework experience
• IPC or J STD certification
• Familiarity with Altium Viewer (training can be provided)
• A background in R&D, prototype, defence, aerospace, automotive, medical or similar high reliability environments

There will be a practical soldering assessment at interview. I’d encourage anyone thinking of applying to treat it as a chance to show what they can do rather than something to fret about. You’ll be judged on what you say you can do, so be honest on your CV and you’ll be absolutely fine. You don’t need to have done every item on that list, either. If you can cover a good chunk of it and have the appetite to learn the rest, you’ll be shown the ropes by somebody who knows this trade inside out.

What’s On Offer

• A salary of £35,000 to £50,000, depending on skills and experience
• 25 days’ holiday plus bank holidays
• Half day Fridays and a degree of flexibility around working hours
• Support to develop your skills and gain recognised qualifications
• Varied and genuinely interesting work, where no two days are the same
• A seat at the bench in a small, friendly and fast growing team, at the point where the technology goes from prototype to production

The role would suit a seasoned technician who wants their craft to count for something again, and it would equally suit a bright, driven technician earlier in their career who has good hands and wants to learn from the best. Either way, if you’re the sort who takes pride in a tidy joint and can’t leave a problem alone until it’s sorted, this is for you.

How to Apply

Our client has engaged KO2, a specialist electronics and embedded engineering recruitment consultancy based in Harrogate, to handle this appointment exclusively.

Electronics Test Engineer

Yapton, West Sussex

Salary up to £50,000 per annual

The Role

Our client is an established and well-regarded manufacturer of electric drive systems and motor control solutions, serving industrial customers across the globe. Operating from their purpose-built UK manufacturing facility, they design and produce a comprehensive range of AC and DC motor control products across single-phase and three-phase applications, with power ratings reaching up to 1 megawatt. The business has been successfully developing innovative electromechanical solutions since the late 1980s and works with a broad network of distributors and systems integrators worldwide.

This is a permanent, full-time position based on-site at our client’s manufacturing facility in the South of England. The Test Engineer role is somewhat unusual in that it encompasses two quite distinct but equally important functions, both of which require genuine technical competence and attention to detail.

The first function relates to the technical development and validation of new products and product improvements during the design and prototype phases. During this stage, you will work closely with the electronics and firmware engineering teams to carry out what we might call development testing. This involves setting up and executing rigorous test protocols that allow the design team to verify that their circuits are performing as intended, to identify any issues that might emerge during integration of multiple boards and subsystems, to diagnose anomalies when they arise, and ultimately to support the engineers in iterating and refining the product design for performance and reliability. You will be hands-on, building test jigs and bespoke instrumentation where necessary, working with oscilloscopes and similar analytical equipment to understand what is happening at the component and board level, and feeding back clear technical observations that help the development team solve problems and optimise their designs.

The second function is rather more formal and procedurally structured, and relates to compliance and conformance testing. Once a product design has been finalised and is ready for market release, there are prescribed testing regimes that must be completed to satisfy various regulatory requirements and standards. These include testing to the Low Voltage Directive, EMC regulations, and UL/CSA compliance standards depending on the intended markets. This testing is more formalised, with defined test specifications, acceptance criteria, and detailed documentation requirements. You will be responsible for ensuring that products meet all applicable standards before they can be sold, and that the appropriate compliance records and certifications are in place.

The role requires someone who can move comfortably between these two different modes of working. The development testing demands creativity, problem-solving ability, and a collaborative approach. The compliance testing demands precision, methodical attention to procedure, and the ability to produce clear, accurate documentation.

Key Responsibilities

• Plan, design and execute rigorous test protocols across the full range of operating conditions, including various load conditions, speed profiles and supply voltage scenarios
• Design and commission test rigs, build custom instrumentation and automation solutions, and ensure all test equipment is properly calibrated
• Carry out development phase testing on prototype boards and integrated systems, identify performance issues and anomalies, and work collaboratively with the design engineers to diagnose and resolve problems
• Perform formal compliance and conformance testing against relevant standards including CE, UL/CSA and EMC requirements
• Maintain day-to-day scheduling and prioritisation of test activities, managing the testing pipeline to support product timelines
• Operate and troubleshoot a range of laboratory equipment including oscilloscopes, power analysers, load banks, programmable power supplies and similar analytical tools
• Work safely and competently with three-phase electrical systems and high-power test equipment
• Write clear, well-structured test procedures, test reports, and technical documentation that communicates findings to both engineering and commercial colleagues
• Liaise across functions with Power Electronics engineers, Motor Control engineers, firmware teams and the manufacturing function
• Contribute ideas for continuous improvement in test methodology, test cell capability and overall testing processes as the product range develops and grows

Experience and Skills Required

• Proven hands-on experience testing motor drives, power electronics, AC-DC converters or similarly complex electromechanical systems in an R&D or manufacturing environment
• Genuine competence with electrical test equipment including oscilloscopes, power analysers, load banks and programmable power supplies
• Practical experience commissioning and calibrating test rigs, working safely with three-phase electrical power
• Ability to write clear, logical test procedures and to produce detailed technical reports
• Comfortable working across the electronics and firmware boundary, able to diagnose issues that involve both hardware and software
• Strong communication skills and genuine ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams
• Good organisational skills and ability to manage multiple testing priorities
• Formal qualification in electrical engineering, electronic engineering or a closely related discipline (HNC, HND, BSc, BEng or MEng preferred)

Desirable

• Specific experience with electric motor drive systems, particularly inverters or DC drives
• Familiarity with compliance testing protocols and the standards landscape (CE, UL/CSA, EMC)
• Experience designing or specifying bespoke test rigs, jigs or test automation solutions
• Knowledge of product development cycles and design validation methodologies

Location and Package

Location: Yapton, West Sussex, on-site (this is a full-time, on-site role)

Salary: Up to £50,000 per annum, depending on experience and background

How to Apply

Please send your CV along with a covering note that tells us a bit about your most relevant testing experience, particularly any work you have done on power electronics or motor drive products. If you have a portfolio of test procedures, reports or technical documentation, feel free to reference that.

 

Senior Software Architect
Location: Royston, Hybrid Working from Home Available

Salary: Up to £90,000

KO2 is working with a well-established manufacturer of advanced, ruggedised electronic hardware, precision equipment built to perform reliably in demanding real-world conditions. A considerable body of software sits behind each product, running across multiple processing units, and the business is now seeking a Senior Software Architect to take ownership of the software vision and steer it forward.

This is a role of genuine scope, and it is worth being clear about what it is not. It is not an architect position where a set of requirements is handed over and the task is simply to work out how to deliver them. The business is looking for the person who defines how the entire software platform ought to look, across every component and including the data management strategy. You would be the technical figurehead the software team looks to, the person who sets the direction and brings colleagues with them.

The remit

The business runs two mature software platforms that developed separately, in different countries, performing much the same function but built in very different ways with very different front ends. The first task is to understand both in real depth: how they are constructed, why, and where the strengths and the liabilities lie. From there, you would decide the way forward. That may mean retaining what works and extending it, or it may mean concluding that a platform has reached the end of its useful life and defining a new one. That judgement, and the ability to argue it convincingly, sits at the heart of the role.

Alongside this you would:

• Work closely with product management, together with the hardware and technology leads, to define the software portion of the roadmap and the shape of the platform’s future
• Take on line management of the software team, and in time responsibility for software colleagues based in another country
• Partner with a technical lead elsewhere to determine, on a global basis, what gets built and how
• Engage directly with customers where appropriate, since a good deal of what shapes the software returns through the organisation from those using the product
• Balance how much is exposed to the customer against how much is automated beneath the surface, so that the end user is well served with a product that is straightforward to use

The technical picture

The core of this role is C++ and C#. This is application software that controls a device, running on Windows, rather than embedded firmware development. One platform is built largely in C# with an amount of wrapped C carried over from earlier work. The other is predominantly C, with Qt and QML providing the interface layer. You would not be expected to have worked in all of these, and you would not be writing production code day to day. What is essential is a background that began in software engineering proper, writing code and progressing from there, because holding a software team to account and challenging how work has been approached is only credible from someone who has done the work themselves.

A working knowledge of industrial protocols such as OPC and the common field buses would be an advantage. With the European Cyber Resilience Act approaching, an architect who writes and thinks about code with security considered from the outset, rather than addressed after the fact, would be particularly valued.

The person

Technically excellent above all, with the standing to command the respect of an accomplished engineering team. Someone equally comfortable operating at senior level within the organisation and working alongside the development team. A capable communicator, able to take a customer requirement and translate it into something the software team can build, with a clear sense of what matters and what does not.

The international dimension is a significant part of the role. The business operates across the UK, Germany and beyond, so experience of working with teams in more than one country, and an understanding that working styles differ from place to place, would be a distinct advantage.

Finally, the business places real value on engineers who have seen a product through its full life cycle, from introduction through maturity to eventual retirement, and drawn the lessons from it. A history of frequent short tenures is unlikely to suit, as much of what makes this role effective is an appreciation of the long term consequences of the decisions taken.

The essentials

• Salary up to £90,000 + Bonus
• On site in Royston, Cambridge, three days per week. This is a collaborative role, and a fully remote arrangement is not available
• Permanent, and intended as a long term appointment

To apply, please send your CV in confidence. You would be given the full details of the role, and would always know precisely which client you were being represented to before any application proceeded.

Andrew Knight, Director, KO2 Embedded Recruitment Solutions

£25,000 – £30,000 | Cambridgeshire | Full-Time, Permanent | On-Site

Are you looking to start or build your career in medical device testing? Join a leading medical device design and development company as a Test Technician within their Device Testing team, working on a genuinely fascinating range of medical and drug delivery devices. From injectable and inhalation devices through to robotics and surgical instruments.

This is a fantastic entry point into the industry, with a clearly defined route for career progression as you gain experience.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Supporting hands-on testing across a variety of projects, from early-stage R&D through to formal design verification and post-market investigations
• Carrying out mechanical and functional testing – think force testing, weighing, measuring physical dimensions, and detailed visual inspections
• Running environmental stress conditioning and working with bespoke test rigs
• Following test methods, protocols and quality documentation (SOPs, WIs) to a consistently high standard
• Generating and recording accurate test data
• Occasionally supporting electronic test and build work

You’ll work closely within a multi-disciplinary project team, under supervision as you learn the ropes.

What We’re Looking For

• Previous experience conducting laboratory testing (this doesn’t need to be in medical devices – general lab experience from university or another industry is fine)
• A good understanding of health and safety practices in a lab environment
• Experience creating test data and writing up results
• A relevant degree or equivalent practical/vocational experience (BTEC-level lab work also considered)
• Basic Excel skills

You’re likely to be either fresh out of university or have up to around two years’ experience. What matters most is your personality: you’re conscientious, keen to learn, not afraid to ask for help, and able to stay calm and focused under pressure. Any customer-facing or client-service experience (even from part-time work) is a real bonus.

Career Progression

This role offers a genuinely structured path forward:

1. Test Technician (this role) – supervised for your first 6 months while you build core skills and pass probation
2. Test Scientist – working independently on specific tasks
3. Analytical Scientist – recognised as a subject matter expert, responsible for method validation

Graduates with a relevant master’s degree can typically expect to progress through to Analytical Scientist within around two years.

Location & Commute

This is a full time, on-site, laboratory based role in Cambridgeshire. It’s well suited to those driving in, and there are also good cycle routes for anyone commuting from the Cambridge direction or from local villages – with bike storage, showers and towels provided on site for cyclists.

The Package

• Salary: £25,000 – £30,000, depending on experience
• Full time, permanent position
• Structured career development pathway
• Work on genuinely varied, high-impact medical technology

 

Apply now with your CV, or get in touch to find out more about this opportunity.