Design Automation and Scripting Intern

Position Title: Design Automation and Scripting Intern
Requisition ID: [TBD by HR]
Position Location: Fairfax, VA
Position Reports To: Associate Manager, Data Science

At Trident Systems, we believe that strong engineering principles are fundamental to driving innovation and solving complex problems. We promote a culture characterized by rigorous engineering practices and a commitment to continuous improvement. This is achieved by leveraging our organization's collective expertise through collaborative development processes, which include thorough design and peer reviews. We can deliver innovative, high-performance solutions that meet our customers' evolving requirements by integrating our specialized knowledge in aerospace electronic systems with appropriately scaled development methodologies.

We are a mission partner supporting DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers. We develop complex, radiation effects mitigated, designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.

Position Summary

Trident Systems is seeking a motivated and technically curious intern to join our Software/Electrical Engineering team and contribute to the development of custom design automation tooling within Altium Designer. This internship is focused on extending and improving an in-house Delphi Script-based automation framework that performs variant-aware design rule checking (DRC) on high-reliability, space-grade printed circuit board assemblies. The intern will work directly with the EE team to understand real-world PCB design constraints through Altium Designer's native scripting API. This is an excellent opportunity for a student with an interest in embedded systems, hardware design tools, or software infrastructure to gain hands-on experience in a professional engineering environment working on mission-critical aerospace hardware.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Extend and maintain Delphi Script (.pas) automation scripts running inside the Altium Designer scripting environment, interfacing with the PCB and schematic object model APIs.
• Build and refine HTML report generation logic that produces clearly formatted DRC failure reports with net-level detail, area measurements, and actionable inspector guidance.
• Integrate PCB filter query generation directly in the Altium PCB editor following script execution.
• Collaborate with EE and SW engineers to understand design requirements, interpret failure modes, and validate script outputs against manually reviewed PCB designs.
• Write clear inline documentation and code comments sufficient for team members without prior Altium scripting experience to maintain the codebase.
• Participate in design and code reviews, incorporating feedback to improve robustness and performance on large, high-component-count PCB assemblies.
• Perform other duties as assigned

Required Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Electrical Engineering, or a closely related field.
• Foundational understanding of object-oriented or procedural programming concepts; prior exposure to Pascal, Delphi, or any strongly typed language (C, C++, Java) is applicable.
• Ability to read, trace, and reason about existing unfamiliar code in order to identify bugs and propose improvements.
• Comfortable working in a Windows-based engineering desktop environment with specialized EDA tooling.
• Must be geographically located within a commutable distance to the Trident location.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior coursework or project experience involving embedded systems, hardware description, PCB design, or EDA tools (Altium, KiCad, Eagle, Cadence, or similar).
• Basic understanding of PCB or embedded hardware concepts — including components, nets, layers, or assemblies — at a level consistent with an introductory EE or ECE course.
• Familiarity with any scripting or automation framework — Python, VBA, Delphi, Tcl, or similar — applied to file processing, report generation, or tool integration.
• Experience generating structured output formats such as HTML, XML, CSV, or JSON from code for reporting or data exchange purposes.
• Understanding of software quality practices including basic unit testing, code review participation, and version control with Git.
• Interest in aerospace, defense, or high-reliability electronics and an appreciation for the design rigor those domains require.
• Strong attention to detail, comfort with technical ambiguity, and a methodical approach to debugging unfamiliar systems.
• Ability to communicate technical findings clearly — verbally and in writing — to a mixed audience of software and hardware engineers.

Trident Systems reserves the right to change or assign other duties to this position. 

Trident Solutions is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. To request reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact recruiting@tridsys.com.

Pay Transparency: The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)