John Reep
Embedded Systems Architect
I take complex electromechanical products from requirements to production — decomposing the system, designing the hardware and firmware, and planning how it gets verified, scheduled and built.
About
I build products where hardware, firmware and software have to behave as one system, across regulated, rugged and consumer markets. I started in RF and signal processing, grew into embedded hardware and board design, and now spend most of my time on architecture — breaking requirements down into subsystems, deciding how those subsystems divide the work and talk to each other, and planning the verification, schedule and team that turn a prototype into something a factory can build reliably.
Today I'm a principal electrical engineer at a product-development firm, leading electrical and systems architecture on client products, mentoring the engineers who build them, and helping our teams adopt AI in day-to-day engineering.
Selected work
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Requirements to production
Own the electrical and systems architecture of regulated products from feasibility through production: decomposing requirements, defining the interfaces between subsystems, consolidating hardware, and designing the controllers and protocols that make a network of microcontrollers behave as one machine.
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AI-assisted engineering
Selected as my company's AI Champion. I build the tooling and coach the teams bringing AI into everyday embedded work.
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Product turnarounds
Led engineering through a full hardware and software overhaul of a shipping consumer product — re-architecting how its processors divide the work and standing up production test.
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Rugged embedded computing
Led R&D for rugged, module-based embedded computers, including high-speed layout and power systems built to military standards.
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RF and signal processing
Early career in adaptive signal conditioning, RF front ends and signal analysis — the foundation for everything since.
How I think
LH-1: a system, decomposed →
An interactive walk-through of a fictional benchtop instrument: requirements traced to how each is verified, subsystems, architecture, the path a sample takes, weighted trade studies and the hazards that shape the design. Best on a desktop screen.
Background
- B.S. Electrical Engineering, computer engineering emphasis — University of Mississippi. Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu.
- Graduate coursework in electrical and computer engineering — Virginia Tech.
- Co-inventor on a published patent for reconfigurable data distribution, with further applications pending.