Staff Mission Lead Systems Engineer - EO / IR Systems

Description

The company is building several missions that help people understand and act on Earth and climate data. This Staff Mission Lead Systems Engineer role sits in the Mission Execution team and works with the Mission Architecture team early on, when a mission is still being formulated and studied.

During formulation you will help shape the technical concept, run architecture trades, and build the requirements baseline for prospective missions. If a mission is selected for implementation, you become its Mission Lead Systems Engineer (MLSE) and own its technical success from concept through on-orbit operations. These are the most demanding missions, for customers that need high-reliability systems, including U.S. Government (USG), Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC), and selected commercial customers.

You will have a big-picture view of the full mission lifecycle, from early formulation with Business Development, through build with the spacecraft hardware and software teams, to on-orbit validation and performance monitoring with Operations. You are the main technical contact for customers and cross-functional leads, writing requirements and interface control documents (ICDs), leading system modeling with other systems engineers, developing test plans with AI&T teams, and managing program risk with Program Managers.

The company is lean and agile. Success here means scaling analysis and process to the system's maturity and risk, adapting to changing demands and schedules, and explaining technical content clearly to varied audiences.

Responsibilities

• Work with the Mission Architecture team on studies: develop mission concepts, run architecture trades, and shape technical baselines for prospective missions and proposal responses.
• Build and maintain mission-level system models covering architecture, requirements, interfaces, and behavior. Carry them from study into implementation as the authoritative technical baseline.
• Act as the final technical authority for your mission. Lead its conceptual design and development, and drive the key cross-functional trades and decisions.
• Tailor and apply the Muon mission design process to your mission, keeping it aligned with program needs, and help refine the process across all missions.
• Turn customer objectives and stakeholder needs into clear, verifiable, actionable technical requirements.
• Be the main technical contact for your mission with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders.
• Manage requirements traceability, verification, and validation.
• Define mission CONOPS and manage subsystem budgets such as power, data, mass, and pointing/stability.
• Identify and reduce internal and external mission risks, and communicate their impact clearly.
• Assess and coordinate design changes across disciplines for the whole program lifecycle.
• Lead design reviews, test readiness reviews, and flight readiness reviews.
• Monitor on-orbit spacecraft and data pipelines to confirm mission success and that customer requirements are met.
• Work closely with systems, hardware, software, data, ground segment, and operations teams, giving technical direction on your mission and supporting them on other missions.
• Serve as MLSE for one mission while supporting general systems engineering on other Muon missions, and stand in for other MLSEs when needed.
• Improve engineering processes, tools, and methods to make mission development and operations more efficient and effective.

Requirements

• Hands-on engineering experience with EO/IR and/or RF systems, including payload or instrument design, link budgets, spectrum and regulatory considerations, and mission-level EO/IR and/or RF architecture trades.
• A bachelor's degree or higher in an engineering field, plus 8+ years in complex systems, mission architecture, or spacecraft design, with a focus on high-rigor work for government or demanding commercial customers.
• Prior experience as a technical lead, such as Chief Engineer or Lead Systems Engineer, on at least one complex system for USG, DoD, IC, or commercial customers.
• Experience on major space programs for USG, DoD, IC, or commercial customers.
• Experience with USG/IC acquisition programs, space systems development standards, and mission assurance standards.
• Solid understanding of USG/IC contracts and their artifacts.
• Experience writing government proposal responses, such as RFI and RFP responses.
• Extensive experience with system modeling, systems analysis, and simulation.
• A proven record of integrating and delivering complex systems.
• Experience with formal requirements management on a multi-disciplinary project.
• Demonstrated project management skills and the ability to work across engineering disciplines.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and coordination skills.
• Ability to switch roles and responsibilities quickly in a fast-paced environment.
• Must hold an active TS/SCI security clearance.
• Nice to have: experience with Cameo Systems Modeler or an equivalent SysML MBSE tool, capturing architecture, requirements, interfaces, and behavior, and using those models to drive design decisions across a multi-disciplinary team.
• Nice to have: software skills in Python or Julia.
• Nice to have: familiarity with software engineering tools and processes such as version control and code review.
• Nice to have: knowledge of industry standards for electrical and/or software quality practices.
• Nice to have: remote sensing instrument experience across several modalities, such as optical, multispectral, or RF, and their data pipelines.

Conditions

Base salary is $177,000 to $246,000, plus an equity grant and a comprehensive benefits package. Final pay depends on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location, as assessed during interviews.

The company was founded in 2021 and builds, launches, and operates low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations that deliver data for critical missions. It designs its own integrated technology stack and runs a Silicon Valley facility for building spacecraft and integrating payloads at scale. Its work spans climate monitoring and national security.

The company is registered to hire in these states: AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, IA, ID, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA.

The role needs access to export-controlled information under U.S. export regulations. Applicants must be a U.S. person (a U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158), already eligible to access that information without an export authorization, or eligible and reasonably likely to obtain one from the relevant U.S. government agency. The company may decline to pursue an export license for legitimate business reasons.

Benefits

• Full-time employees receive equity compensation, medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401k plan, short and long term disability insurance, and life insurance.
• Three weeks paid vacation for new employees, 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time, and paid parental leave.