Senior Electronics Cost Estimator

Translate customer requirements into the lowest-cost practical electronics architecture, schematic, and eBOM.

Own component, PCB, PCBA, manufacturing, and total electronics cost estimates; align engineering estimates with hard quotes.

Maintain current costed eBOMs, perform design-vintage cost walks, identify cost drivers, and lead cost-reduction recommendations.

Reverse engineer benchmark designs, estimate their cost, identify architecture lessons learned, and feed findings into future designs.

• Review customer RFQ packages, specifications, drawings, interface documents, network files, validation requirements, and customer technical requirements to determine the electronics content required for quotation.
• Identify and interpret quote-driving electronics requirements including power and transients, connector and pinout requirements, LED performance and derating, driver architecture, CAN/CAN FD/LIN communications, diagnostics, EMC/EMI/ESD, microcontroller and software needs, thermal requirements, PCB/PCBA construction, customer-directed components, functional safety/cybersecurity considerations, programming, end-of-line testing, and validation requirements.
• Translate customer requirements into a practical electronic architecture suitable for preliminary schematic development and cost estimation.
• Identify missing, conflicting, or ambiguous customer requirements and coordinate technical clarification with the appropriate internal or customer-facing teams.
• Lead architecture decisions with a focus on achieving all applicable customer requirements at the lowest practical recurring and non-recurring cost.

• Develop or lead the development of preliminary electronics schematics for new RFQs and design studies.
• Work directly with assigned Electronics Engineers and Systems Engineers to create quote-level circuits and architectures.
• Use Altium Designer to develop, review, and modify electronic schematics and generate eBOMs.
• Review major functional blocks including power input/protection, voltage regulation and conversion, LED drivers, microcontrollers, vehicle communication interfaces, diagnostics, thermal monitoring, connectors, EMC/ESD protection, LEDs, and supporting passive components.
• Review architectures for unnecessary component count, excess capability, underutilized channels, oversized PCB requirements, avoidable interconnects, and other design-to-cost opportunities.
• Guide supporting engineers toward standardized, reusable, and cost-efficient architecture solutions where appropriate.

• Own the development and publication of internal electronics cost estimates for new RFQs, design studies, and major engineering changes.
• Assign accurate component pricing to engineer-generated eBOMs using direct supplier quotations, Purchasing-negotiated pricing, approved internal pricing, distributor/market pricing, and appropriate volume-based assumptions.
• Maintain traceability of pricing source, quantity or annual-volume assumptions, manufacturer part number, and quotation basis.
• Evaluate costs for major electronics commodities including LEDs, MCUs, LED drivers, power ICs, regulators, transceivers, MOSFETs, protection devices, connectors, magnetics, capacitors, resistors, and related components.
• Evaluate PCB cost drivers including dimensions, layer count, copper weight, material technology, Tg, board thickness, thermal requirements, and manufacturing constraints.
• Understand PCBA manufacturing cost drivers including SMT, through-hole and back-end processing, labor, programming, test, passivation/coating, packaging, and other manufacturing processes.
• Produce clear cost-per-PCBA, cost-per-lamp, and cost-per-vehicle estimates as required, with documented assumptions, exclusions, open issues, and quote risks.

• Lead or support reverse engineering and competitive teardown activities for customer, competitor, benchmark, and existing production electronic designs.
• Analyze electronic assemblies, PCBAs, component selections, PCB construction, interconnect strategies, thermal solutions, and system architectures to understand how benchmark designs achieve their functional requirements.
• Reverse engineer designs sufficiently to identify major circuit functions, power-supply and power-conversion strategies, microcontroller and communications architecture, LED-driver topology, diagnostics/protection strategies, PCB technology and construction, connector strategy, key components, and manufacturing approach.
• Develop costed reverse-engineered eBOMs using identified components, equivalent components, supplier information, distributor pricing, internal pricing, and manufacturing assumptions.
• Estimate total electronics and PCBA cost of benchmark designs, including component, PCB, assembly, programming, testing, and manufacturing costs.
• Compare reverse-engineered designs against FNG designs to identify differences in component count, architecture complexity, PCB size/construction, LED and driver utilization, power-conversion strategy, MCU/communications strategy, interconnect approach, manufacturing complexity, and overall cost.
• Identify design-to-cost lessons learned from teardown and benchmarking activities and translate them into actionable recommendations for current and future programs.
• Propose architecture simplifications, component substitutions, circuit consolidation, PCB reductions, manufacturing improvements, and other optimization opportunities based on benchmark findings.
• Maintain and communicate benchmark findings and lessons learned so effective concepts can be considered in future RFQs and product development while respecting customer requirements, reliability, validation, intellectual-property considerations, and FNG engineering standards.

• Serve as the primary Electronics Engineering estimating interface with the Treviso, Italy PCBA manufacturing team.
• Alert Treviso to upcoming RFQs and anticipated PCBA quotation requirements, and maintain approximately bi-weekly quotation synchronization meetings.
• Coordinate preliminary engineering estimates with Treviso's official manufacturing/hard-quote process and investigate significant deltas between engineering and manufacturing quotations.
• Coordinate with the Reynosa manufacturing organization and other global FNG manufacturing teams when required.
• Ensure manufacturing-location, process, labor, and other quote assumptions are applied consistently and accurately.

• Support awarded programs by maintaining current electronics costs as designs mature and by generating updated costed eBOMs as designs change.
• Perform detailed design-vintage-to-design-vintage cost walks and clearly explain the reasons for cost increases and decreases.
• Separate cost changes into meaningful drivers such as PCB construction/area, component additions or removals, LED quantity/type, driver architecture, MCU/software architecture, communications/diagnostics, connector/interconnect strategy, manufacturing process or labor, customer-directed requirements, and applicable commercial adders.
• Reconcile schematic, Altium eBOM, engineering-change documentation, and quote assumptions before releasing cost information.
• Identify and propose cost-reduction opportunities while maintaining customer requirements, engineering robustness, quality, and validation capability.
• Support customer and management cost walks with clear technical explanations of architecture changes and their financial impact.

Component Cost, Supplier Expertise & Cost Data Governance

• Serve as the Electronics Engineering subject matter expert for electronic component cost and cost-efficient architecture.
• Maintain strong familiarity with major automotive semiconductor, LED, and component manufacturers and their product portfolios.
• Meet with suppliers to understand new technologies, lower-cost alternatives, product roadmaps, lifecycle status, automotive qualification, availability, and pricing opportunities; share relevant findings with the broader EE team.
• Act as the primary liaison between Electronics Engineering and Purchasing for component pricing and electronics cost activities.
• Work with the Electronics Engineering team to maintain accurate component-cost information within Altium Vault / the approved Altium component library and cost database.
• Help establish consistent component-pricing practices and prevent the use of obsolete, unsupported, or inaccurate cost data.

• Function as the electronics design architect for cost optimization during new quotations and major cost studies.
• Provide technical direction to Electronics Engineers supporting RFQ and cost-estimating activities and delegate requirements review, schematic development, component selection, eBOM development, and supporting analysis as needed.
• Review supporting engineers' outputs for technical completeness, requirements compliance, cost efficiency, and consistency with quote assumptions.
• Serve as the primary point of contact within Electronics Engineering for component-cost and architecture-cost questions.
• Attend applicable RFQ meetings, internal quote reviews, Tech Review presentations, supplier meetings, and program meetings; present electronics architectures, cost estimates, assumptions, risks, and cost-reduction opportunities when required.
• Prepare and distribute concise published electronics cost-estimate summaries to Engineering, Purchasing, Sales, Program Management, Manufacturing, and other stakeholders.
• Communicate complex design and cost information effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Apply working knowledge of Automotive SPICE (ASPICE) processes to support disciplined requirements elicitation, system requirements analysis, architecture definition, traceability, and development handoffs.
• Continuously improve cost-estimating processes, templates, component-cost databases, estimating accuracy, and engineering workflows.
• Identify repetitive estimating activities that can be standardized or automated.
• Use approved AI tools, where beneficial, to accelerate RFQ document review, requirements extraction/classification, traceability, eBOM comparison, cost-delta analysis, supplier/component research, teardown analysis, and engineering summary generation.
• Technically review and validate AI-assisted outputs before incorporating them into official engineering or quotation deliverables.

• Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) or closely related electronics engineering discipline.
• 5-10+ years of relevant electronics engineering experience, with demonstrated senior-level responsibility in hardware design, system architecture, or electronic product development.
• Strong hands-on experience designing automotive or similarly high-reliability electronic hardware.
• Demonstrated ability to read complex customer specifications and translate system-level requirements into electronic architectures and circuit requirements.
• Strong schematic design and circuit-analysis capability, including the ability to independently create or critique quote-level architectures.
• Experience with Altium Designer, including schematic capture, component libraries, and eBOM generation.
• Experience selecting and applying automotive electronic components including MCUs, LED drivers, voltage regulators, transceivers, protection devices, and passive components.
• Strong knowledge of electronic component cost and the technical factors that influence component selection and price.
• Working knowledge of PCB and PCBA cost drivers, manufacturing processes, programming, and test.
• Demonstrated ability to reverse engineer electronic hardware from physical PCBAs, schematics, photographs, component markings, datasheets, and other available technical information.
• Ability to identify major components, infer circuit functionality and architecture, reconstruct or estimate eBOM content, and develop technically defensible teardown cost estimates.
• Experience comparing technical alternatives and developing cost-optimized architectures.
• Experience working cross-functionally with Engineering, Purchasing, Manufacturing, suppliers, and global teams.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to explain cost differences from one design vintage or architecture to another.
• Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to manage multiple RFQs and engineering changes under aggressive deadlines.
• Ability to lead technical activities and coordinate/delegate work in a matrix engineering organization.

• Automotive exterior lighting electronics experience.
• Experience with LED lamp electronics, LED drivers, power electronics, and automotive communication networks.
• Familiarity with major automotive semiconductor and LED manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, Infineon, NXP, STMicroelectronics, onsemi, ROHM, ams OSRAM, Nichia, Seoul Semiconductor, and similar suppliers.
• Experience with global PCBA manufacturing and quotation processes, including coordination across North America, Mexico, and Europe.
• Knowledge of Automotive SPICE (ASPICE), particularly Requirements Elicitation (RE), System Requirements Analysis (SRA), architecture development, and requirements traceability.
• Familiarity with ISO 26262 functional safety, automotive cybersecurity, EMC/ESD, and automotive electrical-transient requirements sufficient to understand their architecture and cost impact.
• Experience with Altium component-library / Vault cost management.
• Experience preparing executive-level or customer-facing cost walks and design-to-cost presentations.
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering, requirements-analysis, or engineering-productivity tools.

Costed eBOM Development

Measures of Success

• New RFQs receive timely, traceable, and technically credible electronics cost estimates.
• Quoted architectures meet customer requirements while minimizing avoidable component, PCB, software, and manufacturing cost.
• Engineering estimates are well aligned with global manufacturing hard quotes and significant differences are understood and reconciled.
• Costed eBOMs and Altium cost data remain current, consistent, and defensible.
• Design-vintage cost changes are clearly explained with actionable cost-driver detail.
• Competitive teardown and reverse-engineering findings are converted into reusable lessons learned and measurable design-to-cost improvements.
• The role becomes the trusted go-to resource for electronics cost, benchmark insight, and cost-efficient architecture decisions across the organization.

This role works closely with Electronics Engineers, Systems Engineers, Purchasing, Acquisitions/RFQ, Sales, Program Management, suppliers, and global FNG manufacturing/engineering teams.

Particular coordination is expected with the Treviso, Italy PCBA quoting/manufacturing team and the Reynosa manufacturing team, with regular communication to keep upcoming quotes, assumptions, hard quotes, and cost updates aligned.

Engineering depth

Senior hardware + systems engineering capability; able to architect and critique designs.

Commercial depth

Strong understanding of component, PCB, PCBA, and global manufacturing costs.

Capable of producing high-quality preliminary estimates on compressed RFQ schedules.

Leads through technical authority, delegation, design reviews, and cross-functional coordination.

Benchmark mindset

Uses teardowns and reverse engineering to learn, quantify, and improve future designs.

Able to present architecture and cost conclusions clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.