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Open to advisory & consulting work
Portrait of Andrés Pino

Andrés Pino

Senior Electrical & Systems Engineering Leader

I am a senior electrical and systems engineering leader with 20 years of experience guiding teams through the full development lifecycle of complex maritime and defense systems — from concept and architecture through integration, test, manufacturing, and delivery.

Programs delivered for: General Atomics · L3Harris · Lockheed Martin
Terradepth · U.S. Navy

Active TS Clearance · San Diego, CA

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About

Surface

Today

My work sits at the intersection of undersea systems, sonar, autonomy, power electronics, and system integration. I currently lead the Power Electronics and System Design group at General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems in San Diego, supporting high-energy laser and electro-optical programs for U.S. defense customers.

Background

Previously, I served as Chief Engineer and Senior Manager at L3Harris, leading the manufacturing and delivery of Navy sonar systems including lightweight torpedo arrays, Virginia-class conformal arrays, airborne dipping sonar, and towed array systems. Before that, I led electrical development for autonomous underwater vehicles and subsea systems at Terradepth and Lockheed Martin — subsea surveillance platforms, sonar suites, pressure-tolerant power systems, battery-powered architectures, and integrated maritime payloads.

What I do now

I advise startups, small businesses, and engineering teams that need senior technical judgment on hard hardware problems — system architecture, power conversion and distribution, design reviews, integration risk, maritime autonomy, subsea sensing, and battery-powered systems designed for precision, reliability, and harsh environments.

M.S. Electrical Engineering, Johns Hopkins (power electronics, analog circuit design, acoustics) · Active Top Secret clearance.

Technical domains

  • System Architecture
  • Sonar & Acoustics
  • Undersea Systems & Autonomy
  • Hardware Lifecycle
  • Power Electronics
  • Directed Energy / HEL
  • Systems Engineering

Leadership & program execution

  • Technical Leadership
  • R&D Leadership
  • Team Management
  • Program Execution

How I work

I pair 20 years of systems-engineering judgment with modern AI-augmented tooling — faster turn on artifacts, fewer dropped details, tighter review loops on critical paths. Force multipliers, not substitutes for engineering judgment.

Daily tooling

  • Claude Code
  • Cowork
  • Claude
  • ChatGPT Codex

Experience

200 — 1 000 m

2025 — Present

Senior Manager — Power Electronics & System Design · General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems

San Diego, CA

Lead the power electronics & system design group supporting high-energy laser and electro-optical programs, ranging from $50M to $350M+, for U.S. Department of Defense customers.

  • Direct a team of five power electronics engineers and serve as the principal technical authority on design reviews and system architecture decisions across multiple HEL programs.
  • Technical lead on a $90M Reaper-mounted high-energy laser program — drove the team through PDR with the customer and secured approval to advance on an aggressive integration and flight-demonstration timeline.
  • Provide architectural oversight for ground-based and airborne directed-energy programs, ensuring system performance, reliability, and customer-requirement compliance.

2021 — 2025

Chief Engineer / Senior Manager · L3Harris Technologies

Salt Lake City, UT

Directed Navy sonar programs (MK54, LWWAA, HELRAS, TB-29, TB-34A) and led a $50M/yr engineering facility, securing over $150M in new contracts.

  • Orchestrated cross-functional Acoustic, Integration & Test, and Specialty Engineering teams to meet strategic milestones across the MK54 lightweight torpedo, the LWWAA submarine sonar, the HELRAS dipping sonar, and the TB-29A and TB-34A towed arrays.
  • Owned technical, fiscal, and operational management for all engineering programs in the facility — hit corporate Free Cash Flow, Operating Income, and Return on Sales targets through innovative bids and disciplined budget oversight.
  • Championed R&D of advanced textured ceramic transducer technology, directing PhD-level scientists to enhance material performance and refine manufacturing for next-generation transducer systems.
  • Expanded the customer base by interfacing directly with NUWC and the Office of Naval Research to accelerate product adoption and technology transition.

2020 — 2021

Lead Electrical Engineer · Terradepth

Austin, TX

Led electrical development of long-endurance autonomous underwater vehicles leveraging onboard machine-learning and AI for marine environments.

  • Spearheaded the full lifecycle of electrical system development — research, architecture, parts procurement, integration — delivering AUV electrical systems built for stringent marine reliability.
  • Developed a novel heavy-fuel generator for autonomous in-mission recharging of lithium-polymer batteries, significantly extending operational endurance and producing one of the longest-endurance AUVs in its class.

2014 — 2019

Senior Electrical Engineer — Advanced Technical Leadership Program · Lockheed Martin

Baltimore, MD

Led hardware engineering on directed-energy, ballistic-missile-defense, and surface-combatant programs while managing $4M+ in budgets across R&D and production hardware.

  • Senior lead hardware engineer on the Layered Laser Defense R&D prototype — developed the Weapon System Control Segment, built lab test units, and delivered a full-system prototype for Integration & Test.
  • Led a team of seven engineers across layered laser defense, ballistic-missile-defense vertical launch systems, and SM-3 Block IIA missile integration and testing.
  • Managed a $350K R&D budget and a $4M hardware budget for the Machinery Plant Control and Monitoring System (MPCMS), critical to Littoral Combat Ship operations.
  • Played a pivotal role in the frigate proposal, overseeing down-selection and bid development and shaping the cost-model analysis for the competitive submission.

2008 — 2014

Lead Electrical Engineer · Lockheed Martin

Palm Beach, FL

Lead electrical engineer on the Marlin AUV program (offshore oil and pipeline survey) and the RAP-VLA rapidly deployable passive-acoustic surveillance system.

  • Led operation, integration, and component-level repair of the Marlin AUV fleet, delivering tested, compliant vehicles within strict budget and schedule constraints; designed advanced sonar suites that significantly improved manufacturability and reliability.
  • Spearheaded the RAP-VLA from concept to functional prototype — engineered custom power PCBs and pressure-compensated alkaline battery packs optimized for low power and high reliability in deep-ocean environments.
  • Produced complete electrical documentation — system schematics, interconnect diagrams, and power-distribution frameworks — to stringent test and operational standards.
View full résumé

Selected Projects

1 000 — 4 000 m

Electro-Optical / Directed Energy

ga.com

A modular, scalable solid-state high-energy laser built for simple power scaling across air, land, and sea platforms, with adaptive optics for atmospheric compensation and both pulsed and continuous-wave operation. My team owns the power electronics and system design behind the program.

  • HEL
  • Power Electronics
  • System Architecture

SONAR

naval-technology.com

MK54 Planar SONAR Array

L3Harris Technologies

The MK54 is the U.S. Navy's primary lightweight anti-submarine torpedo — launched from surface ships, MH-60R helicopters, and P-8A aircraft. Its active/passive acoustic homing section is the sonar "brain" that guides the weapon onto a maneuvering submarine target. As Chief Engineer I led the team responsible for sonar-section production, depot-level testing, and obsolescence management across the fielded inventory.

  • MK54
  • Active/Passive Sonar
  • ASW
  • Guidance Section

SONAR

naval-technology.com

The U.S. Navy's fiber-optic passive wide-aperture flank array for Virginia-class submarines — hull-mounted panels that convert an adversary's radiated acoustic energy into track data using fiber-optic and laser sensing. I directed the cross-functional acoustic engineering, integration, and test effort across the program.

  • Wide Aperture Array
  • Virginia-Class
  • Passive Sonar
  • ASW

Undersea Autonomy

terradepth.com

A self-recharging diesel-electric AUV for large-area seabed mapping and ocean-data collection — multibeam bathymetry, side-scan sonar, and sub-bottom profiling at multi-day endurance. I led the electrical lifecycle and developed the heavy-fuel generator enabling in-mission lithium-polymer recharging, giving the vehicle one of the longest ranges in its class.

  • AUV
  • Heavy Fuel Generator
  • Li-Po Recharging
  • Endurance

SONAR

defenseindustrydaily.com

A deep-water, bottom-mounted passive sensor array that detects, classifies, and tracks quiet diesel-electric submarines by exploiting the deep-ocean reliable acoustic path — part of the Navy's distributed anti-submarine warfare network. I led the electrical engineering lifecycle: sensor integration, power-distribution architecture, and system-level acceptance testing.

  • Passive Sonar
  • VLA
  • ASW
  • Maritime Surveillance

Undersea Autonomy

oceannews.com

Marlin AUV

Lockheed Martin

A commercial deepwater AUV for offshore-infrastructure survey and inspection — generates 3-D geo-referenced models of subsea platforms and seabed. I led the electrical architecture, integration, and component-level test of the fleet from Lockheed Martin's Palm Beach facility.

  • AUV
  • Sonar Suite
  • Power Distribution
  • Subsea
View all projects

Contact

5000 — 6000 m

Open to advisory and consulting engagements — system architecture, systems engineering, power electronics, undersea systems and autonomy, and technical and team management. Send a short note about your problem and a timeline.