Jonathan McGee

Private pilot and electrical engineer with experience in embedded systems, hardware design, and signal processing.

Skills & Abilities

  • Application Engineering
  • Assembly
  • C
  • C++
  • C#
  • Embedded Systems
  • Ethernet
  • FPGA
  • Hardware Design
  • Low Power
  • Microcontrollers
  • Private Pilot
  • Signal Processing
  • TCP/IP
  • UDP
  • VHDL

Experience

  1. Anduril Industries, Costa Mesa, CA

    Principal Electrical Engineer, November 2021 - Present

    Circuit design, PCB layout, and FPGA development for flight systems. Focus on computer modules, software-defined networking, and software-defined radio communication modules.

  2. Ethereal Systems, Mountain View, CA

    Founder, June 2019 - October 2021

    Contract circuit design, PCB layout, FPGA and firmware development.

    Designed and implemented an FPGA-based data acquisition and signal processing core for a miniaturized weather RADAR system. Electronics work included circuit design and schematic capture for the integrated CPU module, FPGA module, and related power systems. Software work included the HDL for the FPGA and related software on the host computer for communication with the FPGA over PCI-Express.

    On a smaller scale, provided contracted assistance in circuit design and board layout for the control electronics of a satellite propulsion system, firmware for consumer electronics, and firmware for the control electronics in an autonomous vehicle.

  3. Alphabet (Google/X), Mountain View, CA

    Hardware Engineer, July 2014 - June 2019

    Circuit design, PCB layout, firmware development, and integrated testing for flight systems. Systems centered around use of the ARM Cortex-M. Limited work investigating use of the Cortex-R (including initial CPU bring-up) and FPGAs. General focus on sensor systems. Limited experience with machine learning for prototyping computer vision applications.

    Interfaced with Enterprise PLM Systems, Component Manufacturers, Prototyping Vendors, and Contract Manufacturers. Implemented and administered database for the centralized management of component libraries for Altium and Orcad/Allegro.

  4. Laboratory for Physical Sciences, College Park, MD

    Research Engineer, May 2008 - July 2014

    Considerable independence was demonstrated through all phases of project lifetime: research, design, and implementation. Regularly handled communication with customers, leadership, and vendors.

    Developed Linux-based C++ software for signal processing applications. Made extensive use of OpenMP for parallelization and Asio for asynchronous network I/O. Designed algorithms based on Bayesian inference for purposes of pattern identification and estimation.

    Programmed stand-alone and PC-based Xilinx FPGA systems for signal processing applications. Development focused on implementing Ethernet (1G and 10G) and UDP/IP for data exchange, fixed-point and floating-point pipelined computations.

    Designed, built, and programmed embedded radio systems based on the Texas Instruments MSP430 and Chipcon radios. Emphasis was on physical miniaturization and minimizing power consumption. Software development was bare-metal in C++, supported by limited use of assembly to construct a rudimentary threaded Real Time Operating System (RTOS). Prototypes have operated autonomously in the field for multiple years without need of servicing.

  5. University Research Foundation, College Park, MD

    Visiting Scientist, August 2007 - May 2008

    Embedded circuit design and development (C/C++) with the MSP430 and Chipcon radio. Work continued with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences.

  6. University of Maryland, College Park, MD

    Research Assistant, June 2004 - August 2007

    Graduate work focused on the design and construction of electromechanical photonic components. Considerable work in the modeling of physical systems.

  7. University of Maryland, College Park, MD

    Undergraduate Researcher, June 2004 - May 2003

    Implemented network routing daemons in C/C++, including the creation of Linux kernel modules. Implemented digital and mixed-signal hardware simulation in C as part of the ATEMU project.

Education

  1. University of Maryland, College Park, MD

    Electrical Engineering - Masters of Science, August 2004 - May 2008

    Major in Microelectronics. Minor in Electrophysics.

  2. University of Maryland, College Park, MD

    Electrical Engineering - Bachelor of Science, August 2000 - May 2004

    Senior focus in Microelectronics.

Aviation

  • Private Pilot’s License (ASEL, IR), May 2012
  • Lifetime Member AOPA, February 2012-Present
  • Lifetime Member EAA, July 2011-Present

Publications

  1. M. Khbeis, J. McGee, and R. Ghodssi, Development of a simplified hybrid ambient low frequency, low intensity vibration energy scavenger system, 2009 International Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference, Denver, CO, USA, Jun. 2009, pp. 525-528, doi: 10.1109/SENSOR.2009.5285377.
  2. J. McGee, Monolithic In-Plane Tunable Optical Filter, M.S. thesis, Dept. Elect. and Comput. Eng., Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA, 2008.
  3. B. Morgan, J. McGee, and R. Ghodssi, Automated Two-Axes Optical Fiber Alignment Using Grayscale Technology, in Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 102-110, 2007, doi: 10.1109/JMEMS.2006.886035.
  4. N. Siwak, J. McGee, and R. Ghodssi, Indium Phosphide Optical MEMS for Chemical and Biological Sensing, 2006 IEEE/NLM Life Science Systems and Applications Workshop, Bethesda, MD, USA, Jul. 2006, vol. 16, pp. 1-2, doi: 10.1109/LSSA.2006.250369.
  5. N. Siwak, M.W. Pruessner, J. McGee, and R. Ghodssi, Indium phosphide MEMS for integrated bio-sensing, 2005 International Semiconductor Device Research Symposium, Bethesda, MD, USA, Dec. 2005, pp. 264-265, doi: 10.1109/ISDRS.2005.1596086.
  6. J. McGee, N. Siwak, B. Morgan, and R. Ghodssi, In-Plane Indium Phosphide Tunable Optical Filter Using Ridge Waveguides, 2005 International Semiconductor Device Research Symposium, Bethesda, MD, USA, Dec. 2005, pp. 56-57, doi: 10.1109/ISDRS.2005.1595975.
  7. M. Datta, M.W. Pruessner, K. Amarnath, J. McGee, S. Kanakaraju, and R. Ghodssi, Wavelength-selective integrated optical MEMS filter in InP, 18th IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, Miama Beach, FL, USA, Jan. 2005, pp. 88-91, doi: 10.1109/MEMSYS.2005.1453874.
  8. K.A. Jones et al, Effects of high-temperature anneals on 4H-SiC Implanted with Al or Al and Si, in Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 96, no. 10, pp. 5613-5618, 2004, doi: 10.1063/1.1798404.
  9. J. Polley, D. Blazakis, J. McGee, D. Rusk, and J.S. Baras, ATEMU: a fine-grained sensor network simulator, 2004 First Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks, Santa Clara, CA, USA, Oct. 2004, pp. 145-152, doi: 10.1109/SAHCN.2004.1381912.
  10. J. McGee, M. Karir, and J.S. Baras, Implementing Ad Hoc to Terrestrial Network Gateways, Wired/Wireless Internet Communications 2004, Frankfurt, Germany, Feb. 2004, pp. 132-142, doi: 10.1007/978-3-540-24643-5_12.