Vincent Saw

Embedded Systems Engineer
Bay Area, CA

Resume

About Me


Hello! I have a passion within embedded software and hardware, and have designed, validated, and managed numerous projects related to embedded systems.

I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Engineering at San Jose State in 2023. There, I led my senior design project and am designed a fully in-house battery management system (BMS) including a custom Altium Designer PCB and also C firmware. This BMS served as the foundation for successive revisions within Spartan Racing Formula SAE, part of the FSAE Electric racecar design series.

At Spartan Racing Formula SAE, I was the former Software Engineering Lead for three racecars and am now a Software Advisor. Within this team, I pioneered the first ever competing electric racecar for our team, and have led two electric racecars to achieve top 10 (and 1st in the 2021 Endurance event) at the annual Formula SAE competition in Michigan. Because of these results, we are currently considered as the top Formula SAE team in California.

My technical contributions to the team include the overseeing of the instrument cluster, CAN-sensors module, electronics control unit, battery management system, and other miscellaneous embedded systems relevant to the car. Though I have already graduated, I continue to offload my knowledge and support to new team members for legacy systems that I have been involved in.

Experience


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Spartan Racing - Formula SAE

AUG 2019 - PRESENT
San Jose, CA

Software Engineering Lead & Advisor

I led embedded hardware and software development for the 2021 SRE-5 and 2022 SRE-6 electric racecars, which placed top 10 in the Formula SAE Michigan competition of 50+ university teams.
Spartan Racing Formula SAE Website

  • Pioneered the software of the team’s first electric race car in FSAE competition, placing 1st in the EV Endurance event
  • Designed and debugged both embedded hardware and C firmware of automotive electronics such as the dashboard, sensor-CAN module, ECU, and battery management system, each accompanied with design reviews
  • Led a distributed battery management system senior design project, resulting in the bring-up success of custom PCB designs/assemblies plus firmware for 4-layer master and 2-layer slave PCBAs, which measured Li-ion cells
C C++ Embedded Systems Firmware Development Git Altium Designer PCB Design PCB Validation PCB Assembly CAN I2C SPI UART ARM STM32 Atmel Soldering Oscilloscope Project Management Design Reviews Mentorship Data Analysis
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Cisco

FEB 2024 - PRESENT
San Jose, CA

Hardware Engineer II

At Cisco, I was a part of UCS Blade Server hardware development and worked on both 2-socket and 4-socket Intel enterprise servers for enterprise customers.

Linux PCB Validation PCB Bring-up BIOS Validation Firmware Validation Failure Analysis CPU GPU DDR5 Power Sequencing Microprocessors High Speed Clocks Secure Boot & TPM Production Workflow Soldering Oscilloscope Git Confluence JIRA
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SpaceX

MAY 2023 - AUG 2023
Hawthorne, CA

Hardware Development Engineering Intern

At SpaceX, I was a part of Starshield Satellite hardware development and I owned, developed, and validated projects that influenced future satellite design as well as mass bring-up of production hardware.

  • Designed a multi-layer PCB with Xpedition for production bring-up and functional testing of satellite hardware
  • Drove hardware radiation qualification testing efforts by designing both validation PCBs and test procedures
  • Led validation and characterization effort of a passive high-speed clock distribution approach and developed Keysight ADS simulations to characterize clock behavior over multiple distribution configurations
PCB Design PCB Validation Embedded Systems Siemens Xpedition High Speed Clocks Test Design Confluence JIRA Soldering Oscilloscope Spectrum Analyzer Keysight ADS Radiation
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Tesla

JAN 2022 - JAN 2023
Palo Alto, CA

Hardware Engineering Intern

At Tesla, I was on the Infotainment Design and Validation team and was heavily involved with validating all vehicle models' infotainment motherboards/PCBs. I also took self-initiative and extended automated functional testing data in a sortable and readable format, using Splunk, to teams associated with Infotainment hardware.

  • Designed and developed Python tools and small embedded systems for validation automation, Linux tools to cut infotainment bring-up time in half, and embedded C firmware for factory camera hardware
  • Analyzed and debugged oscilloscope signals as well as software logs to root-cause failure patterns within CPU, GPU, MCU, high-speed clocks, audio DSP, etc, on factory and vehicle units to influence new PCBA designs
  • Validated and designed factory hardware/firmware bring-up processes and mainline vehicle firmware changes cross-functionally to meet tight production release deadlines
  • Implemented data analysis tools on existing test software which increased team’s visibility to test data
Python Embedded Systems Git Linux PCB Validation C Firmware Development Firmware Validation Confluence JIRA CPU GPU Microcontrollers High Speed Clocks Audio DSP Splunk Data Analysis Failure Analysis Production Workflow Factory Workflow Soldering Oscilloscope
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Western Digital

JUN 2021 - AUG 2021
Remote

Cyber Analysis Intern

At WD, I took ownership of a project to utilize existing Splunk data/logs in order to continuously train a machine learning model with the purpose of detecting high-risk patterns within company employees.

  • Improved internal risk management for IT by training and deploying a machine learning model using Splunk queries with a purpose of detecting high-risk patterns
  • Developed scheduled Python and Linux scripts to migrate large data sets across multiple cloud platforms
  • Coordinated regularly with team members across different departments to implement various projects
Python Linux Splunk Confluence JIRA Machine Learning Platform Integration
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San Jose State University

SEP 2020 - MAY 2021
San Jose, CA

Instructional Student Assistant - Computer Engineering Dpt.

I was selected as an undergrad student to serve as a Instructional Student Assistant for an introductory C programming class (CMPE 30). As a previous student of the course, I provided feedback to the professor, developed and improved the lab curriculum, and worked closely with students and their work.

  • Led lab sections of 30+ students for a Programming Concepts & Methodology class in C
  • Improved and developed lab curriculum using previous experience as a student of the course
  • Provided live and graded in-depth feedback to each student regarding the relevant topic and potential improvements that could be made to their programs
C Linux Mentorship
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San Ramon Valley Education Foundation

JUN 2018
Danville, CA

Student Programming Mentor

As a mentor, I closely mentored young students at a multi-week Video Game Design summer camp. By the end of the summer camp, each individual student had his/her own unique game in Unity!

  • Worked with a team of other mentors to develop an effective curriculum for teaching Unity, C#, and video game design principles to students
  • Developed C# scripts and templates as guides for students, which helped each student develop a functional video game at the end of the summer camp
  • Presented and pitched ideas through public speaking and also coordinated with a small team of mentors to ensure implementation of agreed-upon ideas
C# Unity Video Game Design Mentorship Public Speaking

Projects


SPARTAN RACING
BMS Senior Project

SPARTAN RACING
SRE-6 & SR-13

SPARTAN RACING
SRE-5

THETA TAU
LED and Mobile App

Happy Household
(Hackathon Winner)

Color Between The Lines Video Game

Education


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San Jose State University

2019 - 2023
B.S., Computer Engineering
GPA: 3.85

At San Jose State University, I was engaged in a variety of extra curriculars such as:
  • Spartan Racing (Formula SAE EV & ICE)
  • Theta Tau Professional Engineering Fraternity (ΘΤ)
  • Software & Computer Engineering Society (SCE)
  • Spartan Gaming
  • Vietnamese Student Association (VSA)

Contact