Intern, Medium Voltage Test Engineering
Heron Power · Scotts Valley
Extracted from the posting
Intern role building and operating high-voltage test infrastructure for medium-voltage power electronics insulation. Work covers HV bench setup, dielectric withstand, insulation and partial discharge measurements, and accelerated aging campaigns. Includes degradation analysis and failure mode documentation feeding insulation design at Heron Power.
What to Expect
Heron Power is a startup company building cutting-edge power electronics for the 21st-century grid. We aim to de-bottleneck the growth of electricity generation and consumption with scalable, innovative, and less costly hardware solutions, accelerating the electrification of everything.
Our first goal is to build better converters (inverters & rectifiers) to connect large-scale renewables, storage, and loads to the grid. Heron’s leadership team is made up of seasoned veterans who have designed and shipped gigawatts of power conversion products over the past decade.
We understand that no one individual knows everything. We will all learn a lot together and from each other. We strive to build a collaborative, enriching environment conducive to personal, technical, and career growth. You can expect to work in a dynamic environment, driven by first principles engineering, solving difficult problems—with a strong bias toward hands-on execution and learning by doing.
Job Overview
You will build and operate the high-voltage test infrastructure we use to characterize and qualify insulation systems in medium-voltage power electronics. This role owns a real piece of the reliability validation loop: test bench setup, dielectric characterization campaigns, degradation analysis, and structured failure mode documentation. You will work with equipment and methodologies that most EE programs never expose students to—and you will be building the data foundation that informs how we design insulation systems for grid-tied hardware at scale.
How You Will Contribute
Medium Voltage Test Infrastructure
- Design, build, and operate medium-voltage test benches: HV power supplies, measurement dividers, partial discharge detection systems, protective earthing schemes, and safety interlocks.
- Own bench system design: HV clearances, grounding architecture, protection strategy, measurement integrity, and safe operating procedures.
- Build and document test fixtures for cable assemblies, busbars, insulation specimens, and HV subcomponents—to a standard someone else can operate safely.
- Learn and strictly enforce MV lab safety protocols: electrical clearances, interlock design, lockout/tagout, and safe approach procedures.
Dielectric Characterization & Testing
- Execute dielectric strength tests—AC/DC withstand and impulse—against defined acceptance criteria; own data collection and reporting.
- Perform insulation resistance, polarization index, and dielectric loss (tan δ) measurements using HV megohmmeters, LCR bridges, and dielectric analyzers.
- Run partial discharge (PD) measurements end to end: system setup, acquisition, PRPD pattern generation, and first-pass interpretation.
- Execute accelerated aging and environmental stress campaigns on insulating materials under thermal, humidity, and combined stress conditions.
Degradation Analysis & Closing the Loop
- Track and analyze degradation trends across test campaigns: capacitance drift, tan δ evolution, PD magnitude and repetition rate, breakdown statistics.
- Build structured data workflows and visualizations that clearly show baseline, stressed, and failed states—and make the trajectory actionable.
- Produce failure mode documentation: what failed, what the failure mechanism was, what the precursor signals were, and what changed.
- Partner with design and materials engineering to translate test findings into corrective actions and design improvements.
Materials Characterization & Inspection
- Support post-failure analysis: specimen dissection, cross-section preparation, visual and microscopic inspection, comparison against reference specimens.
- Maintain sample tracking logs, calibration records, and test procedure documentation to production-quality standards.
What You Will Bring
We prioritize a strong foundation in first principles, practical skill, an inquisitive mindset, and a proactive attitude. We care as much—or more—about how you work as what you already know.
Must-Have
- Pursuing a BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Physics, or Materials Science.
- Coursework in electromagnetics, dielectrics, or high-voltage engineering—or demonstrated independent study in this area.
- Genuine technical interest in high-voltage physics, insulation behavior, and failure mechanisms.
- Strong debugging instincts: ability to isolate failure modes, design targeted experiments, and close findings into documented root causes.
- Detail-oriented and safety-conscious—MV lab work demands rigor and discipline.
Nice-to-Haves
- Exposure to partial discharge theory, dielectric spectroscopy, or high-voltage lab techniques.
- Familiarity with IEC or IEEE dielectric testing standards (IEC 60243, IEC 60270, or similar).
- Experience with data analysis and visualization in Python or MATLAB.
- Prior lab research in materials characterization, high-voltage systems, or power electronics.
If you are passionate about technology and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment, we would love to hear from you. Join us in accelerating the electrification of everything at Heron Power.
