Head of Avionics

Hawthorne | On-site | Competitive salary, equity and relocation support

An early-stage space-hardware company is hiring an experienced avionics leader to take technical ownership of the electrical and electronic systems for a flight-intent robotic vehicle.

The company has an intelligent junior electrical team and substantial hardware already in development. It now needs a senior technical authority who understands how to turn fast-moving prototype electronics into integrated, qualified spaceflight hardware.

This is not a pure people-management position. The successful candidate will remain close to architecture, design decisions, reviews, testing and integration while developing the wider avionics organisation.

The role

• Own the overall avionics architecture, interfaces and technical requirements.
• Lead development across compute, communications, sensing, power management and motion-control electronics.
• Establish qualification and environmental-test requirements.
• Guide component and system-level design.
• Manage technical and integration risks.
• Work closely with mechanical, software, systems and test teams.
• Mentor the existing engineers and build the avionics team.
• Take responsibility for the successful delivery and integration of flight hardware.

Essential experience

• Avionics development for spacecraft, satellites, launch vehicles, landers or comparable space systems.
• Ownership of hardware that has flown or completed meaningful flight qualification.
• Experience spanning design, integration, environmental testing and qualification.
• System-level understanding rather than a single narrow electronics specialty.
• Technical leadership and the ability to develop less-experienced engineers.
• Willingness to remain directly involved in engineering decisions and hardware problem-solving.

Candidates may come from either new-space companies or traditional aerospace organisations.

Prime experience is welcome where the individual is motivated to move into a faster, lower-bureaucracy environment.

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