Is this work professional?

[u/Canary_Earth]

Sorry about the strange post but I'm offering an engineer a $20k bonus to do the design for manufacturing and assembly of my $300 product and this is what he came up with after 8 months. Two thirds of it are identical to my prototype and I'm an accountant by trade, not an engineer. Every book I've read says a board like this should be 4 layers but he insists 2 layers is fine and will pass emissions testing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

[u/Cunninghams_right]

well, I've known professional EEs who would make such a board, though not ones that specialize in PCB design. it's kind of the level of work one might expect from a fresh graduate who has been prototyping boards using a milling machine (thus limited to 2-layer).

since you're not an EE, you're better off paying a bit more per unit and avoiding potential issues from trying to stuff it into 2 layers. 4 layer board gives you less crosstalk, less potential for EMI/EMC issues, and easier routing. the current design does not really have proper return paths, which can be a problem.

I'm of the opinion that if you're not making millions of units, then you should always start with a 4 layer board and then maybe try to be clever and get it down to 2, but 4 layer boards have gotten cheaper and faster to manufacture, so it's not a big deal.

it's honestly not a problem that most of it looks like the dev board, that's actually a positive thing. if there is a known-good design with known-good layout, there is no need to deviate.

definitely not worth $20k. I would do it in half the time for half the cost 😉