Founding Electrical Engineer

Founding Electrical Engineer

Boulder, CO

Our client are a new exciting Space startup looking for a Lead Electrical Engineer to take ownership of the electrical architecture and hardware development of our space drones from the ground up. This is a full lifecycle role. You won’t inherit a mature spacecraft electrical system or own one small piece of a larger program. You’ll take hardware from a blank sheet through architecture, design, build, integration, qualification and ultimately flight.

What You’ll Own:

• Own the electrical development of their space drones across the full spacecraft lifecycle
• Define the vehicle electrical architecture from the ground up, including component selection, interfaces, power and avionics integration
• Take electrical hardware from initial requirements and architecture through detailed design, prototyping, build, test, qualification and flight
• Select and qualify COTS hardware, balancing performance, reliability, cost and speed of development
• Work hands-on with hardware, including building, debugging and troubleshooting electrical systems
• Own electrical integration across the vehicle, working closely with flight software, GNC, autonomy and mechanical engineering
• Develop and execute electrical test and validation strategies for both individual hardware and the integrated vehicle
• Help build a comprehensive but lean engineering development unit (EDU) that allows the team to rapidly integrate, test and iterate on spacecraft hardware
• Drive hardware readiness and own electrical go/no-go decisions for integration and deployment

Why Join?

• Real ownership. You’ll own the electrical system across its entire lifecycle, from the first architecture decisions through to hardware operating in orbit. This is not a narrow subsystem role.
• A founding-level role. You’ll be a core technical leader in the business, with meaningful equity and involvement in the decisions that shape both the vehicle and the company.
• Build, test, learn, repeat. Our client is designing around high flight volume and rapid iteration. The goal is to build approximately 100 vehicles per year, creating far more opportunities to test hardware, learn from it and improve the next vehicle than a traditional multi-year spacecraft development cycle.
• Build something that flies. If you’ve taken spacecraft electronics from requirements through design, integration, qualification and flight, and want to do it again with significantly more ownership, this role gives you that opportunity.

Requirements:

• Significant experience developing electrical systems or avionics for spacecraft
• Demonstrated full lifecycle hardware development experience, from initial requirements and architecture through design, build, integration, test and qualification
• Strong hands-on electrical engineering background, with the ability to design, build, debug and test hardware rather than solely managing its development
• Experience integrating electrical hardware within a multidisciplinary spacecraft or similarly complex aerospace system
• Comfortable selecting components and defining architectures from the ground up
• Comfortable operating in an early-stage environment where you’ll own your discipline while contributing across the wider vehicle and company

If you’ve owned spacecraft electrical hardware across the full development lifecycle and want the responsibility of taking a vehicle from a blank sheet of paper through build, qualification and ultimately into orbit, we’d like to hear from you.