Electrical Design Engineer · Tesla Battery Electronics
Passionate about creating innovative solutions for a sustainable future.
I'm Smit — an Electrical Design Engineer on Tesla's Battery Electronics team, where I design and validate battery management system boards and high-voltage controllers. I carry hardware the whole way: schematic capture, layout, bring-up, and validation on the bench.
I'm equally passionate about what AI can do for hardware engineering. It runs through my design, debugging, and validation workflows — including AI-driven test automation that accelerates bench validation.
I grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, before moving to the Bay Area to study Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley (Class of 2025). At Berkeley, I served as Chief of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science for Formula Electric at Berkeley — overseeing the low-voltage and high-voltage electronics, firmware, software, and vehicle integration of our electric race cars, and leading a team of talented engineers. Along the way I interned at Tesla and Rivian, designing BMS boards, cell simulators, and test automation systems.
My goal is to help build the sustainable, efficient energy systems the future runs on.
Tesla
Design and validate battery management system (BMS) boards and high voltage controllers, from schematic capture and layout through bring-up and validation. Apply AI across the hardware workflow, including AI-driven test automation that accelerates bench validation.
August 2025 — Present
Formula Electric at Berkeley
Led the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science division for Formula Electric at Berkeley, responsible for overseeing the design and implementation of cutting-edge systems for our electric racing vehicle.
September 2022 — June 2025
Tesla
Designed and developed a 24-channel BMS PCB, a thermistor reliability evaluation board designed for 100s of hours of reliability testing in extreme conditions, and an isoSPI communication interface board to bridge multiple BMS ASICs.
January 2024 — August 2024
Rivian
Developed stackable cell simulator boards and a test automation framework for next-gen vehicle architecture updates.
May 2023 — August 2023
Idol
Developed and deployed a smart contract on the Polygon Network to mint custom NFTs for high-profile clients.
May 2022 — December 2022
B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Graduated May 2025
If you're interested in collaborating or learning more, feel free to reach out.
Chief of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science · SN3 & SN4
As the Chief of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science for the SN3 and SN4 seasons, I was responsible for the design, development, and integration of all electrical systems in the vehicle — leading the team through the completion of SN4 in the 2024-25 season.
I designed and developed multiple systems and PCBs, authored firmware, and validated and brought up boards for integration into vehicle functions across both cars.
Our system architecture comprises a 588V pack, 140s4p, built from Energus 1s4p modules. The BMS is built on the LTC6813 family of chips from ADI, with the newer ADBMS ASICs adopted for SN4. The inverter is the Cascadia Motion Rinehart PM100DZ 3-phase motor controller driving an Emrax 228 High Voltage motor (Axial Flux, PMSM, SPM). Everything on the electrical architecture except the inverter and motor is custom designed and brought up in house.
Designed an isolated 600V to 12V flyback converter with UVLO at 60V to power the high-voltage indicator and supply power to a BMS motherboard.
The PCU (Powertrain Control Unit) reads acceleration and brake sensors. This data is used to calculate a torque value command that is broadcast over the CAN network so the inverter can draw the power necessary for the requested torque. This board is also the base for the BSPD.
The BSPD ensures safety by cutting power to the drivetrain if the brake and accelerator are engaged simultaneously, or if more than 5kW of power flows through the drivetrain while the brakes are pressed. It detects faults in pedal signals and prevents unintended acceleration.
The DCU (Data Control Unit) logs everything on the CAN bus to an on-board SD card and transmits all messages through an XBee wireless transceiver module for live telemetry, with a supercapacitor UPS to avoid corruption of SD cards. The Dash acts as the I/O for the driver — relaying information from the CAN bus to the screen, and driver input onto the CAN bus.
Power Electronics · 97% Efficiency
Designed, simulated (on PLECS) and iterated on a PV panel input to 12V output buck converter and wrote an MPPT algorithm, achieving efficiencies over 97% on all operating points.
The project involves designing a buck converter that steps down the voltage from a photovoltaic (PV) panel to a stable 12V output, including the development of a Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithm to optimize the efficiency of the power conversion process.
A comprehensive guide to the design process: component selection and sizing, simulation results and analysis, thermal management considerations, and PCB layout guidelines.
The circuit design in detail: PV panel input section, buck converter topology, control circuitry for MPPT, and output filtering and regulation.
Four-Wheel EVTOL Drone · Custom Flight Controller
Designed a four-wheel drone with EVTOL capabilities by utilizing an in-wheel toroidal propeller design, eliminating the need for additional propellers — the wheels drive on the ground, then rotate flat to fly.
Designed a custom flight controller PCB with a suite of distance sensors to enable intelligent object detection and path planning.
Software · Security · Machine Learning
A secure file storage and sharing system in Go, offering encrypted file operations, user authentication, and access control for secure sharing and management.
View Repo →Developed a machine learning classifier to identify movie genres based on words spoken in the movie dialogues.