Principal Avionics Engineer (Space Vehicles)

Principal Avionics Engineer (Space Vehicles)

Denver, CO or Los Angeles (South Bay), CA | Full-time | Onsite

A growth-stage satellite company is bringing its avionics in-house and needs the engineer who will define the product line it builds on.

You’ll architect and own a modular, reusable avionics product line deployed across spacecraft buses, hosted payloads and mission systems: flight computing, C&DH, power distribution and control, spacecraft networking and payload interfaces. You’ll take it from trade study through schematic, PCB, bring‑up, qualification and flight, then into repeatable production. You’ll set the technical standard, build the team around you, and still be in the lab when the hardware needs it.

What you’ll own

• Avionics architecture: processors, FPGA/SoC, memory, redundancy and fault tolerance by mission class and radiation environment
• Interface standards across modules and customer payloads (SpaceWire, Ethernet, CAN, RS-422, LVDS and more)
• Analog, digital, mixed-signal and power electronics design leadership
• Parts and radiation strategy: rad-hard, rad-tolerant and screened COTS
• Testbeds, flatsats and HIL/SIL environments
• Environmental qualification: TVAC, vibe, shock, EMI/EMC
• Make/buy decisions, and design for manufacture and test at rate
• Hiring and growing the avionics team

What we’re looking for

• 12+ years designing and delivering avionics or high-reliability electronics, with significant spacecraft or launch vehicle time
• You have architected avionics systems, not just individual boards, through qualification and flight
• Deep flight computing and C&DH experience
• Still hands‑on with schematics, PCB, derating, bring‑up and debug
• Working knowledge of radiation, thermal, vacuum and EMI/EMC effects on electronics
• U.S. person (ITAR); able to obtain a U.S. security clearance

Nice to have

• A modular or product-line avionics architecture reused across vehicles
• Spacecraft power systems: PDUs, battery and solar array management
• Proliferated LEO, SDA, DoD or commercial programs
• Taking avionics into rate production at a startup
• Altium

Package: competitive base/bonus + equity. Relocation available.