The Ocean Engineering Department welcomes applicants for a Senior Hardware Design Engineer position! The Senior Hardware Design Engineer will be responsible for the design, construction, and field deployment of specialized electrical systems for oceanographic, marine robotics, marine renewable energy, and acoustic instrumentation. Design tasks will be varied and may range from custom circuit boards to extremely complex data acquisition systems.
Job opportunities
Your next chapter begins here
Careers at APL-UW span across research and engineering, field and technical roles, software, principal investigators, business operations and administration, postdocs, internships, and more.
Every member of the APL-UW community, from brand-new team members to long-timers celebrating decades of work at the lab, is critical to the development of cutting-edge, impactful research. And our everyday work is all the more interesting because of it! Apply now for a role where your skills make a difference.
Be Boundless!
Be Boundless at the University of Washington as a UW employee! You can build a fulfilling and impactful career while enjoying the beautiful Pacific Northwest with an all-encompassing compensation and benefits package and limitless professional growth opportunities.
See Yourself at APL!
See Yourself at APL! Take advantage of those opportunities and more at the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington. As an APL-UW employee, you not only get to enjoy the opportunities and benefits of UW, but also be a member of a team of world-renowned researchers, scientists, and engineers dedicated to bettering our campuses, state, country, and world by solving complex challenges and pioneering new technologies.
Questions? Visit our Common Questions page to learn more.
Featured job
The University of Washington (UW) seeks an energetic and empowering leader with proven research, administrative, and communication skills for the position of Executive Director of the Applied Physics Laboratory.
Through collaborative pooling of technical expertise, in-house engineering, and prototype manufacturing resources, the APL-UW has positioned itself as a leader in complex and large-scale marine-related engineering projects, remote and extensive field operations, and quick and efficient advanced technology transfer to industry and government sectors. The Executive Director of APL-UW must be an individual with proven excellence in leading independent research and in the management of programs of significant size at research or educational institutions. The Executive Director of APL-UW must provide a strong strategic vision, as well as leadership to guide research operations and funding initiatives.
For more information on the position’s duties and responsibilities, requirements, and application components visit the official position post on UW Hires.
Meet the APL-UW’s current Executive Director, Dr. Kevin Williams.
Career opportunities
Come see yourself at APL as a Hardware Design Engineer in the Ocean Engineering Department! As a Hardware Design Engineer, the incumbent will be responsible for the design, construction, and field deployment of specialized electrical systems for oceanographic, marine robotics, marine renewable energy, and acoustic instrumentation. Special emphasis will be placed on the design of electrical systems for long-term operation in the ocean.
The Environmental and Information Systems (EIS) Department is recruiting for a full-time Signal Processor / Software Engineer to join their team. As an integral member of the signal processing group within EIS, the incumbent will support and develop complex specialty software for engineering research programs, and be primarily engaged in the development, both independently and as a part of a dynamic team, of complex software for detection, classification, localization, and tracking of targets in sonar applications, and sensor processing for autonomous systems.
See yourself at APL as a full-time Signal Processor / Software Engineer! As a valuable team member of the Environmental and Information Systems (EIS) Department, the incumbent will develop complex specialty software for engineering research programs, with a focus on detection, classification, localization, and tracking of targets in sonar applications, and senior processing for autonomous systems.
The Electronic & Photonic Systems department is hiring for a full-time Field Engineer. This position will support the operations and maintenance of the National Science Foundation’s Regional Cabled Array (RCA) portion of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The Field Engineer will work as a technical lead and will function as part of a team of research scientists and engineers to support long-term oceanographic observing systems, including three offshore moorings, six water column profiling systems, and over 100 cabled instruments. Work will be performed in a laboratory environment and in the field aboard research vessels.
Does this job make you curious about working at APL-UW? Check out this story to learn more about Field Engineers in our community!
Ocean Surface Topography and Eddy Dynamics Postdoctoral Scholar
The Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington (APL-UW) invites applications for a postdoctoral researcher in physical oceanography as part of a NASA-funded project investigating the dynamics of mesoscale ocean eddies as observed by a series of satellite altimeters. Specifically, the postdoctoral investigator will be working with along-track observations to test hypotheses regarding eddy generation, maintenance, and shape. The researcher will work directly with the Principal Investigators of this project (Peter Gaube of APL–UW, Jeffrey Early of NorthWest Research Associates, and Jonathan Lilly of the Planetary Science Institute). In addition, postdocs are encouraged and mentored in writing grant proposals. A notable feature of APL postdoc positions is the ability to submit grant proposals as PIs under supervision, with the goal of establishing an independent research program and career path.
Postdoctoral Scholar in Physical/Chemical Oceanography (Bubble-Mediated Gas Exchange)
The Applied Physics Laboratory invites applications for a postdoctoral researcher to join the NSF funded Collaborative Research Investigating Bubble-Mediated Gas Exchange in a Strongly Convective Ocean during the Bubble Exchange in the Labrador Sea (BELS) Experiment. The postdoctoral investigator will assist with collection and analysis of data obtained using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) equipped with dissolved gas sensors and acoustic sensors for currents and bubbles. The postdoctoral scholar will work directly with Dr. Craig McNeil (APL-UW). In addition, postdocs are encouraged and mentored in writing grant proposals. A notable feature of APL postdoc positions is the ability to submit grant proposals as PIs under supervision, with the goal of establishing an independent research program and career path.
We are hiring an Electrical Engineer with Digital Electronics experience to work on cutting edge applied ocean projects for a diverse set of customers and applications. The successful candidate will be part of an integrated engineering team that designs, builds, installs, operates and maintains complex electrical/mechanical systems to solve challenging problems in novel ways. The person selected will be responsible for the design, test and production of new electronics systems including acoustic data collection systems, high power acoustic amplifiers and control electronics in highly integrated ocean instrument packages.
The Applied Physics Laboratory’s Information Technology (IT) team is seeking several full-time professionals who are proficient in executing both system and network administration tasks. Primary expertise in either Windows or Linux operating systems is required, including working knowledge of the other OS, and/or working knowledge of macOS. The incumbent will execute both system and network administration tasks in multiple networked enclaves. For itemized IT enhancement projects, the incumbent will provide support to project technical leads, including executing a wide range of tasking to support APL’s IT enterprise, to include system and network administration of infrastructure hardware and software, as well as aiding endpoint users with system provisioning and trouble shooting.