Senior Motor Controls Lead Engineer - Lunar Permanence

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight! This role is part of the Lunar Permanence business unit, which develops Blue Origin’s Blue Moon landers and related products. To further Blue Origin's mission of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth, we are building sustainable infrastructure for our transport of crew and cargo from Earth to the lunar surface.

As a Senior Motor Controls Lead Engineer on the Core Avionics team, you will own the technical baseline for a family of embedded motor controllers reused across multiple vehicles and mechanisms in support of Blue Origin’s Lunar Permanence efforts. These controllers may support applications such as gimbals, valves, pumps, and deployable mechanisms, and must be designed for high reliability, fault tolerance, and operation in demanding environments. This is a hands‑on engineering role. In addition to owning requirements, architecture, interfaces, and technical decisions, you will work directly with controller hardware in the lab through bring‑up, integration, troubleshooting, verification, and qualification. The engineer in this position is expected to be comfortable debugging real hardware and resolving issues across electronics, firmware, sensors, actuators, and system interfaces. The ideal candidate has deep experience with motor control systems and embedded electronics, strong technical leadership skills, and the ability to guide a motor controls team through the full product lifecycle. Prior hardware design experience is beneficial.

Responsibilities

Serve as the lead controls engineer for a family of embedded motor controllers, owning the technical baseline across requirements, architecture, interfaces, verification, and lifecycle documentation.

Define and maintain reusable motor control architectures for application across multiple mechanisms, vehicles, and mission use cases. Partner with vehicle and subsystem teams to understand mission and mechanism needs, including performance, environmental, fault tolerance, operability, safety, and integration requirements. Develop control solutions for lunar valves, latches, pumps, fans, and blowers.

Work directly with controller hardware in the lab, supporting bench bring‑up, checkout, integration, troubleshooting, and failure investigation. Debug issues that span hardware and software boundaries using standard lab equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, power supplies, DAQ systems, and HIL/bench test setups.

Define and manage interfaces between motor controllers and motors, resolvers/encoders/sensors, vehicle power, avionics networks, and higher‑level system control functions. Drive fault‑tolerant control strategies including safe‑state behavior, fault detection/isolation/recovery, built‑in test, degraded modes, and health telemetry.

Plan and execute verification efforts, including test strategy, procedure development, hardware bring‑up, integration support, environmental test support, and closure of qualification and acceptance evidence.

Review hardware designs, schematics, layouts, component selections, and test results in close collaboration with electrical design engineers. Coordinate with systems, firmware, electrical, mechanical, safety, reliability, manufacturing, and test teams to ensure successful product delivery.

Communicate technical status, risks, issues, and trade decisions clearly to peers, management, and program stakeholders. Support technical reviews and ensure actions, risks, and open issues are tracked to resolution.

Minimum Qualifications

B.S. in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, or another relevant technical field. Significant experience developing and delivering motor control or motor drive systems for stepper, BLDC, or similar electromechanical actuator applications. Experience with embedded control electronics in safety‑critical, high‑reliability, or mission‑critical environments. Experience owning or leading a technical baseline, including requirements, interfaces, design trades, verification planning, and configuration‑controlled product documentation. Experience with anchoring plant models and verifying control system performance and stability margin in a highly regulated industry Hands‑on experience working with control hardware in the lab, including bring‑up, integration, test, troubleshooting, and testing of embedded electromechanical systems. Experience designing or evaluating fault‑tolerant architectures and fault response behavior for embedded control systems. Demonstrated ability as a technical lead. Strong written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

M.S. or Ph.D. in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, computer engineering, robotics, controls, or a related field. Experience with spacecraft or aerospace mechanism controllers such as gimbals, valve actuators, pump drives, solar array drive assemblies, or deployable systems. Experience with hardware bring‑up and debug of motor controller electronics, including mixed‑signal, digital, and power interfaces. Experience reviewing or contributing to electronics hardware design, including schematic review, PCB layout review, parts selection, design‑for‑test, or design‑for‑manufacture. Experience with FMEA, FTA, reliability analysis, hazard analysis, or safety‑critical development practices. Experience with field oriented control, trapezoidal control, sensorless control, position & velocity control, dual‑wound motors, and mechanism control. Experience with qualification, acceptance, and environmental test campaigns. Familiarity with systems engineering and requirements management tools such as Jama or similar platforms. Experience working in a highly integrated development environment with firmware, electrical, systems, and test teams.

Base Pay Range

Base Pay Range for: CA applicants is $183,193.00 - $256,469.85 WA applicants is $183,193.00 - $256,469.85 Other site ranges may differ.

Benefits

• Benefits Benefits include: Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long‑term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
• Stock Options for all regular employees (working at least 20 hours/week).
• Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company‑paid holidays.
• Dependent on role type and job level, employees may be eligible for benefits and bonuses based on the company's intent to reward individual contributions and enable them to share in the company's results, or other factors at the company's sole discretion.
• Bonus amounts and eligibility are not guaranteed and subject to change and cancellation.
• Please check with your recruiter for more details.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Blue Origin is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and is committed to attracting, retaining, and developing a highly qualified and dedicated work force. Blue Origin hires and promotes people on the basis of their qualifications, performance, and abilities.

We support the establishment and maintenance of a workplace that fosters trust, equality, and teamwork. We provide all qualified applicants for employment and employees with equal opportunities for hire, promotion, and other terms and conditions of employment, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin/ethnicity, age, physical or mental disability, genetic factors, military/veteran status, or any other status or characteristic protected by federal, state, and/or local law.

Blue Origin will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the Washington Fair Chance Act, the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles Fair Chance in Hiring Ordinance, and other applicable laws.

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Thank you for your interest in working at Blue Origin! Blue Origin was founded with a vision to enable a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth. In order to preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes in the need to enable humanity to expand, explore, find new energy and material resources, and move industries that stress Earth into space. Blue Origin believes it has an important role in building a road to space and lowering the cost of getting there. At Blue Origin, we’re working on this today by developing fully reusable launch vehicles and systems that are safe, reliable and affordable. Every launch vehicle is designed for human spaceflight from the beginning and able to ferry payloads to space.