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Open to advisory & consulting work
Portrait of Andrés Pino

Andrés Pino

Engineering Advisor — Defense & Maritime Hardware

I help defense and maritime teams get hard hardware right — system architecture, power electronics, sonar, and undersea autonomy. Twenty years carrying programs from concept through integration, test, and fleet delivery, now advising teams that need that judgment on demand.

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

Active TS Clearance · San Diego, CA

How I can help Send a note

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.