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 diverse team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!
Enterprise Engineering: This role is part of Enterprise Engineering (EE), where we provide technical standards, tools, processes, training, and subject matter expertise for product engineering and manufacturing. EPM allows all Blue Origin business units to benefit from commonly used capabilities, hardware, and software and assists business units in identifying, selecting, and training engineers from both inside and outside the organization.
We are a diverse team of collaborators, doers, and problem-solvers who are relentlessly committed to a culture of safety and innovation. This position will directly impact the history of space exploration and will require your commitment and detailed attention towards safe and repeatable space flight. Join us in lowering the cost of access to space and enabling Blue Origin’s vision of millions of people living and working in space to benefit Earth!
In this role, you will be responsible for the avionics technical baseline to ensure overall technical compliance across the development and operational lifecycle of multiple product lines. The position is within the Enterprise Engineering (EE) organization reporting to the Lead Chief Engineer for Space & Lunar Systems. Your duties include working across multiple Blue Origin business units to drive technical decisions that will enable the successful design, development, acquisition, and integration of avionics. Your duties will include accountability to the developing technical baselines, implementing common avionics strategies, chairing Technical Evaluation Committees, leading resolution of key technical issues, and ensuring adequate rationale is present to safely address risks and technical issues. You will collaborate with Blue Origin Program Chief Engineers to oversee design, development, and integration & test of the avionics to improve the overall quality of support through a diverse Chief Engineering team. The selected candidate requires strong engineering and collaboration skills to ensure the successful support of our customers’ missions. This position requires 15+ years’ experience with advanced spacecraft avionics design and development programs and must have strong experience supporting spacecraft integration & test in a fast-paced exciting environment. Ideally, this candidate will also have a strong understanding of Flight Software (FSW) and wire harness design. You will contribute to innovative solutions, while demonstrating personal leadership, technical judgement and competence, and a passion for the highest technical standards partnering with the business unit and engineering leadership to achieve program goals with acceptable risk.
Responsibilities:
As a Blue Origin Avionics Chief Engineer, you will be accountable for the avionics technical integrity and technical baseline of the programs you support. You will act as the independent technical authority for the avionics, providing Chief Engineer assessments of requirements, design, risks, and schedule with the Program Managers and product owners. Identify gaps between requirements, design, manufacturing, operations, and facility solutions with project teams on practical solutions across the avionics life cycle. Assess and disposition aggregate technical risks across programs and technology development projects. Assess and approve technical completion and compliance at major program and element technical reviews. Oversee successful production and delivery of avionics to programs / products. You will provide engineering leadership and mentoring to coordinate avionics design, analysis, and systems engineering processes throughout development, verification, delivery, and operation. Provide independent review of corrective actions for major failures at the program/product level and work with functional managers in addressing systemic issues. Facilitate technical trades and advise teams on solutions for flight and ground avionics architectures. Collaborate with program and company leadership to define and assess technology road-map alignment product needs and industry developments. Collaborate with other members to assess and implement engineering process health and compliance with standards for the program. Represent the company and project with key customers and partners. Coordinate with other Chief Engineers to guide activities internally and across multi-element teams to tackle complex problems.
We are looking for someone to apply their technical expertise, leadership skills, and dedication to quality to support our customers’ critical missions. Passion for our mission and vision is required!
Required Qualifications:
- Minimum of a B.S. in an engineering-related field.
- A minimum of 20 years of advanced space-rated avionics design, development, or analysis experience, including FPGA design and a strong background in both analog and digital circuit design engineering.
- Proven experience as a Chief Engineer on space-rated avionics development programs preferred. Additional experience with launch vehicle avionics and architectures is a plus.
- Experience and understanding of spacecraft Flight Software architectures, design, and engineering.
- Experience in wire harness design and manufacturing.
- Understanding of various space environments as it relates to avionics design to ensure radiation hardness / tolerance and reliability.
- Experience in full life-cycle development of spacecraft and / or satellite avionics hardware, integration & test, launch and mission operations support.
- Experience designing, deploying, and supporting multiple complete flight systems or systems of similar complexity.
- Previous experience with product lines and multi-payload spacecraft is strongly preferred.
- Highly organized teammate with excellent technical written and verbal communication skills.
- Proven track record to operate with cohesive and effective teams and drive rapid decision making within those teams.
- Experience with development in mission and safety-critical environments.
- Leadership experience in a space development environment.
- Ability to travel and/or temporary duty in support of growing tempos of production and operations.
- Ability to earn trust, maintain positive and professional relationships, and contribute to our inclusive culture.
- Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.
Desired Qualifications:
- An M.S. in an engineering-related field.
- Experience in full life-cycle development of spacecraft and / or satellite avionics software/firmware development, integration, testing, and formal verification.