Senior Electrical Engineer

About Urban Sky:

Urban Sky is a venture-backed aerospace startup that pioneers utilization of the stratosphere and reimagines the way humans view and analyze the earth. We design, build, operate, and sell stratospheric balloon systems, and the data we collect supports a wide range of applications, from real-time wildfire monitoring to urban mapping. Our technology is also employed by government customers including the Department of Defense (DoD), NASA, and others. Urban Sky sends flight vehicles to the stratosphere on a weekly basis.


Our team consists of engineers, makers, developers, and doers who believe in the power of human potential when passion meets utility within a small, supportive team. At Urban Sky we strive to create a team culture grounded in candor, inclusion, respect and empowerment.


We aim to build the next chapter of stratospheric history in Denver and are seeking self-starting, open-minded, and hard-working team members.


About The Role:


The Senior Electrical Engineer is a hands-on technical leader responsible for the architecture, design, and validation of electrical systems for the Super Pressure Balloon project, including flight avionics, power distribution, battery/solar energy systems, CAN/RS-485 networks, satellite communications, sensor interfaces, motor/winch control electronics, and termination/cutter circuits. This role will develop design solutions that operate reliably in the stratospheric environment and support long-duration, altitude-controlled flight, rapid ground and flight test iteration, and transition from prototype builds to repeatable flight hardware.

This is a highly cross-functional role that touches bus avionics, Super Pressure flight electronics, motor control, and distributed power, BMS/charge controllers, pressure sensing, GPS/satcom, winch electronics, and ground/acceptance-test equipment - amongst a growing set of electronic applications. Beyond owning design, you will mentor engineers on the Super Pressure electrical and integration team, drive rigorous board checkout and validation processes, and engage directly with flight operations, manufacturing, systems engineering, and customer/program stakeholders to translate mission feedback into the next generation of hardware.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop mature electrical design solutions that are manufacturable at scale and qualified to operate reliably in the stratospheric environment (low pressure, wide thermal excursions, radiation, thermal vacuum considerations) and the specific Super Pressure mission environment, including long-duration power constraints, autonomous recovery from fault modes, and field-maintainable flight hardware.
• Own architecture and design of electrical systems spanning Super Pressure flight avionics, distributed power, battery packs/BMS, solar charging, downstream DC/DC conversion, CAN/RS-485 networking, satellite communications, GPS/GNSS, pressure/temperature sensing, winch/motor control, cutter/termination circuits, and bus/interconnect boards.
• Own power-budget and electrical-architecture trades for day/night mission profiles, battery/solar sizing, load shedding, comms blackouts, modular mission configurations, and fault-tolerant operation.
• Serve as a technical mentor within the Super Pressure cross-functional product team - providing guidance on best practices, technical review, and coaching junior engineers through complex design trades.
• Participate in end-user engagement to gather operational feedback and translate it into concrete design iteration priorities and requirements for SPV, optical flight test, ground test, and production-transition hardware.
• Develop and deliver on electrical engineering design schedules, including milestone definition, risk tracking, and cross-discipline coordination with mechanical, software, firmware, systems engineering, flight operations, manufacturing, test, and program management.
• Own hands-on checkout and diagnostic evaluation of boards - this role is not limited to a desk. You should be equally comfortable in Altium and at the bench with an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, and power analyzer debugging battery-powered flight systems, CAN/satcom interfaces, power converters, motor drivers, sensor boards, and termination circuitry.
• Drive the board checkout process and develop the test hardware, fixtures, and procedures needed to validate complex functionality ahead of system-level integration including pressure-sensor acceptance testing, burst/leak instrumentation, cutter timing tests, power-system characterization, environmental/thermal-vacuum testing, and integrated SPV flight checkout.
• Lead design reviews (requirements, schematic, layout, and post-manufacturing) and enforce a high bar for design rigor, documentation, and traceability across prototype, flight-test, and production-intent configurations.
• Define and uphold EEE parts selection standards, derating practices, and reliability screening appropriate for near-space hardware including low-pressure creepage/clearance, conformal coating, COTS component life-cycle risk, second-source planning, and country-of-origin constraints where applicable.
• Partner with manufacturing and supply chain to ensure DFM/DFT, component availability, and second-source strategies support production ramp and rapid build/test cycles for SPV1/SPV2 and related flight articles.
• Contribute to EMI/EMC planning, grounding architecture, and power distribution strategy across the vehicle including RF compatibility with GPS/satcom/radio payloads, metallized-envelope implications, harnessing, shielding, and GPS-denied or comms-degraded operating cases.
• Support flight and field operations as needed, including anomaly investigation and root-cause analysis of returned hardware and telemetry-informed fault isolation from ground tests, optical flight tests, and long-duration SP flights.
• Collaborate closely with firmware and software engineers to integrate telemetry, health monitoring, watchdog/reset tracking, nonvolatile configuration, battery data, comms recovery, and autonomous safe-state behavior.
• Develop and maintain electrical ICDs, wiring diagrams, bring-up checklists, verification procedures, and test reports that let technicians and operators build, inspect, and fly the system repeatably.

Qualifications:

• B.S. or M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 7+ years of professional electrical engineering experience, including demonstrated ownership of hardware from concept through production or flight-test deployment.
• Deep expertise in mixed-signal PCB design: schematic capture, multi-layer layout, embedded flight electronics, rugged sensor interfaces, low-noise analog/digital measurement, protection circuits, grounding, and harness-aware board design.
• Hands-on experience with motor control electronics (BLDC/stepper, current sensing, closed-loop control) and power electronics (DC-DC conversion, power sequencing, protection) including battery packs/BMS, solar charge control, load switching, power budgeting, and low-power duty cycling.
• Proven track record bringing up new boards - power-on, debug, characterization, and validation against requirements with enough discipline to turn ad-hoc bench learning into repeatable procedures and acceptance tests.
• Proficiency with industry-standard EDA tools (Altium Designer or equivalent) and lab instrumentation (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, source meters) plus power analyzers, electronic loads, thermal chambers, and environmental-test instrumentation.
• Experience designing for harsh environments - aerospace, automotive, defense, or equivalent - with understanding of thermal, vibration, and environmental qualification and specific interest in low-pressure, high-altitude, low-temperature, and long-duration power-limited operation.
• Experience with CAN/CANopen or RS-485 networks, UART/SPI/I2C sensor integration, serial satellite modems, GPS/GNSS modules, and distributed-node architectures.
• Experience defining system-level power budgets, derating/protection strategy, grounding, shielding, and EMI/EMC approach for battery-powered electromechanical systems.

Nice-to-Haves/Preferred Skills:

• Experience with stratospheric, space, UAV, or high-altitude systems.
• Familiarity with RockBLOCK/Iridium, Starlink-class satcom, low-bandwidth telemetry strategies, GPS/GNSS integration, and power-aware comms architecture.
• Experience with pressure sensing, precision measurement, low-power sensor nodes, flight telemetry, and acceptance-test instrumentation.
• Working knowledge of radiation effects (TID, SEE) and mitigation strategies for COTS electronics.
• Familiarity with aerospace quality and reliability standards (e.g., IPC Class 3, AS9100, MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461).
• Experience with Python, C, or embedded firmware sufficient to write test scripts and bring-up utilities and to collaborate effectively on telemetry, watchdog, boot-state, and autonomous recovery features.
• Prior experience establishing board checkout procedures and automated test fixtures for a growing hardware team including ground-support equipment, environmental screening, and flight-readiness verification.
• Experience with conformal coating, creepage/clearance, and reliable operation of approximately 48 V battery systems in low-pressure environments.
• Experience designing, testing, or qualifying termination, hot-cutter, pyro-cutter, valve, heater, or other safety-critical control circuits.
• Experience working at the intersection of electrical, mechanical, firmware, manufacturing, and flight operations for fielded hardware.

Requirements:

• Must be US Citizen or Permanent Resident
• Must be located near Denver, CO

Benefits:

• Equity
• Medical, Vision and Dental
• Unlimited Vacation Days
• Parental Leave
• Cell Phone Bill Stipend
• Stock Options

Urban Sky is required to post this salary range per Colorado law. Your salary will be determined based on your abilities and experience.


Colorado Pay Transparency

$140,000-$180,000 USD

NOTE: Research suggests that women and BIPOC individuals may self-select out of opportunities if they don't meet 100% of the job requirements. We encourage anyone who believes that they have the skills and the passion necessary to succeed here to apply for this role.


This position may require the candidate to deal with commodities, software, technology, defense articles, and/or technical data which are subject to the Export Administration Regulations and/or the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Additional information may be requested so as to determine whether export authorization is required from the Bureau of Industry and Security and/or the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. If authorization is required, employment will be contingent upon the Company successfully obtaining such authorization from the relevant government agency.


Urban Sky is an equal opportunity employer, and we value diversity. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.