Pleasant Solutions Careers

Positions Available:

• Embedded Systems Product Engineer
• Additional positions may be available for specialists. Tell us your strengths and we’ll go from there.
• Other Positions: We are also hiring for other positions (software developer, mechanical engineers, project manager, and more). You may apply for multiple positions separately. If you know someone in any of these areas, please do them a quick and friendly favour by letting them know about this posting.

Position Overview:

• Full time and permanent.
• Meaingful projects deep in product design and experimentation.
• Flexible hours (for example: choose to start your day between 6am and 10am, work late some days and shorter on others).
• Approximately 85% internal projects and 15% client projects.
• Ability to count on a best-of-the-best software development team for all programming needs, although we welcome you to contribute to embedded programming as your skills allow.
• Gain valuable career experience in the newest technologies and embedded electronic platforms. We value staying up to date.
• Gain experience throughout the product life-cycle and with both small and large projects.
• Substantial amount of advanced creative and strategic thinking, especially on internal projects.
• Learning from some of the smartest technical peers in the country, on exciting projects that you can really sink your teeth into.
• Providing second opinions to your peers to confirm their plans.
• One of our main upcoming projects will be a project of very high profile in the media.
• Does not involve a majority time allocation to break-fixing and emergencies.
• Does not involve a lot of off-hours requests or travel.
• Does not involve a lot of time with boring legacy systems.
• Is not as dependant on the Alberta economy.
• Duties include selecting how components will work together (embedded system design), sourcing the right make and model of components, overseeing the design of the board, determining battery times, making prototypes (including soldering), dismanteling off the shelf electronics to find ways to modify them.
• Projects will vary from barebone microcontrollers to single board microprocessing computers with an operating system, but your focus would be on orchastrating the surrounding components and board.
• Example project: as seen at paranoid.com, a tennis ball sized embedded system, with 3D printed shell, that has a microphone, speaker, constant audio processing, a couple LEDs, some switches, and physically integrates with other off the shelf electronics, and low cost at medium-run quantites.
• Example project: a credit card sized device with 3 buttons, powered by USB, where each button notifies a web server to change the background music of room.
• Example project: hacking a stereo system to leech its power source and have the state of the stereo control provide input into a separate microcontroller that controls your toaster.
• Most of the learning is through hands-on trying and doing. Meetings and formal training is minimized.
• Environment allows for some privacy at your workstation as well as time to concentrate without distractions when you need it.
• We are a highly technical company that will notice and appreciate when engineering is done skillfully and when designs are done properly.

Requirements:

• Highly intelligent.
• Loves to tinker with small electronics and other technologies.
• Has experience with the hardware side of microelectronics, whether mass produced or with hobby-grade electronics Arduino and Raspberry Pi or otherwise.
• Gets deeply involved with challenges and will persevere at length to achieve victory.
• Takes pride in work.
• No requirement to be great at actually writing code for microcontrollers (we have software programmers who can do the coding you might not be able to)
• No specific requirements for formal education or industry experience. We evaluate each applicant based on merit rather than formalities.

Nice To Have:

• Pragmatic approach to balancing perfectionism with getting the job done.
• Ability to see opportunities for improvement everywhere.

About The Work Environment:

• Friendly, non-threatening, and non-political environment.
• Mid-sized company but retaining the speed and flexibility of a smaller company.
• We are a great environment for both outgoing people and those who are very shy and introverted (applicable to non-client facing positions).
• We strive to have every employee sitting near a window for natural light and to have plenty of plants throughout the office; we care about employee health.
• Free onsite massage therapy.
• Private nap rooms for isolated thinking time or for taking a nap if you didn’t sleep well last night.
• Atrium to enjoy the sun during lunch.
• Social events worth remembering (fencing competitions, curling, video game or board game parties, coding competitions, commando combat training, robotics club coming soon, etc).
• An example of our culture: Lunch together is in a very comfy sofa room, and even the quiet types are comfortable there.
• Unlimited access to pillage our kitchens for caffeine, sugar, healthy snacks, soups, and more :)
• Additional perks that are cost-shared like motorized sit-stand desks.
• Task focused: everyone in the company heavily uses centralized to-do lists to stay organized, prioritize, and coordinate.
• Fast paced
• Consistent work/life balance: mandatory overtime is very rare.

About The Company:

• Pleasant Solutions is a dynamic company headquartered in Edmonton, a large satellite office in Toronto and Vancouver, and small satellite offices across Canada (including in Calgary, Ottawa, etc).
• Silicon Valley kind of excitement and growth potential.
• Fast growth: One of the 200 fastest growing technology companies in North America with 955% growth over 5 years (based on growth rates in published rankings of the 2014 Profit 500 and 2013 Deloitte Technology Fast 500). Canadian Profit Guide ranked us #88 out of 500 for fast growth in Canada, announced in Sept 2015.
• Stable and well diversified.
• We also operate Western Canada's most advanced studio, which might also be the largest capacity video marketing studio in Western Canada except for television and news stations. The studio team has won multiple awards.
• Full of smart and passionate people whom you can learn from.
• Very low employee turn-over rate, attesting to the value of working here.
• As of 2021, we are more focused on in-house product development than previous years which had a focus on consulting services. Currently, our lead focus is on Sheetcast, a tool that lets non-technical people build their own full-blown web applications using spreadsheets, and which is beginning explosive growth (see https://Sheetcast.com) as well as privacy products as seen under Paranoid.com. We still do some software development services, electronics manufacturing, marketing services, and IT services. Other in-house products include the high-security Pleasant Password Server.
• An innovative technology company with an aim of achieving results in creative ways.
• We develop high quality software you will take pride in. Our company name says it all.
• Socially conscious (for example, we pay for employees to sponsor hundreds of WorldVision children).
• Achieved zero layoffs throughout Covid.

Applying:

• What do you have to lose by exploring the possibility? Applying does not take long and we keep your application confidential (never disclosed to existing employer).
• Apply online today at https://pleasantsolutions.com/careers/apply/embedded-electrical-engineer
• Even if you don't have your resume updated or ready to go, apply anyway; we want to hear from you!
• Please do not apply via email, apply only by visiting the https://pleasantsolutions.com/careers/apply/embedded-electrical-engineer site.

Keywords:

• electrical design engineer
• embedded system designer
• embedded designer
• product designer
• product engineer
• arduino uno
• netduino
• raspberry pi
• internet of things (IOT)
• arm processor
• microprocessor
• microcontroller
• tinkerer
• electronics engineer
• firmward engineer
• controls engineer
• robotics application engineer
• rapid prototype engineer
• x86
• digital circuit design
• programmable logic controller (PLC)
• prototype builder
• maker kit
• physical computing
• electrical engineer
• electrical engineering
• system on chip (SOC)
• printed circuit board (PCB)
• circuit board design
• computer hardware electronics
• schematic circuit design
• circuitry
• Plurals:
• electrical design engineers
• embedded system designers
• embedded designers
• product designers
• product engineers
• arm processors
• microprocessors
• microcontrollers
• tinkerers
• electronics engineers
• firmward engineers
• controls engineers
• robotics application engineers
• rapid prototype engineers
• digital circuit designs
• programmable logic controllers (PLCs)
• prototype builders
• maker kits
• electrical engineers
• system on chips (SOCs)
• printed circuit boards (PCBs)
• circuit board designs
• schematic circuit designs