Senior Motor Control Avionics Engineer – Lunar Permanence Verified today

About the role

You will join the Lunar Permanence business unit as a Senior Motor Control Avionics Engineer on the Core Avionics team. This role is part of Blue Origin's effort to build sustainable infrastructure for transporting crew and cargo from Earth to the lunar surface.

You will own the technical baseline for a family of embedded motor controllers reused across multiple vehicles and mechanisms. These controllers support applications such as gimbals, valves, pumps, and deployable mechanisms, and must be designed for high reliability, fault tolerance, and operation in demanding environments.

This is a hands-on engineering role. In addition to owning requirements, architecture, interfaces, and technical decisions, you will work directly with controller hardware in the lab through bring-up, integration, troubleshooting, verification, and qualification. You will debug real hardware and resolve issues across electronics, firmware, sensors, actuators, and system interfaces.

Key responsibilities

• Serve as Responsible Engineer for the motor controller family, owning technical baseline including requirements, architecture, interfaces, verification, and lifecycle documentation.
• Define and maintain reusable motor controller product architectures for application across multiple mechanisms, vehicles, and mission use cases.
• Partner with vehicle and subsystem teams to understand mission and mechanism needs, including performance, environmental, fault tolerance, operability, safety, and integration requirements.
• Develop controller solutions spanning embedded processing, sensing, power electronics, interfaces, and firmware for BLDC and stepper motors.
• Work directly with controller hardware in the lab, supporting bench bring-up, checkout, integration, troubleshooting, and failure investigation.
• Debug issues spanning hardware and software boundaries using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, power supplies, DAQ systems, and HIL/bench test setups.
• Define and manage interfaces between motor controllers and motors, resolvers, encoders, sensors, vehicle power, avionics networks, and system control functions.
• Guide a multi-disciplinary engineering team across concept development, design, build, integration, test, qualification, and production transition.
• Lead design trades and technical decision-making for performance, redundancy, fault handling, environmental robustness, manufacturability, and reuse.
• Drive fault-tolerant control strategies including safe-state behavior, fault detection/isolation/recovery, built-in test, degraded modes, and health telemetry.
• Plan and execute verification efforts, including test strategy, procedure development, hardware bring-up, integration support, and environmental test support.
• Review hardware designs, schematics, layouts, component selections, and test results in close collaboration with electrical design engineers.
• Coordinate with systems, firmware, electrical, mechanical, safety, reliability, manufacturing, and test teams.
• Communicate technical status, risks, issues, and trade decisions clearly to peers, management, and program stakeholders.
• Support technical reviews and track actions, risks, and open issues to resolution.

Minimum qualifications

• B.S. in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, or another relevant technical field.
• Significant experience developing and delivering motor control or motor drive systems for stepper, BLDC, or similar electromechanical actuator applications.
• Experience with embedded control electronics in safety-critical, high-reliability, or mission-critical environments.
• Experience owning or leading a technical baseline, including requirements, interfaces, design trades, verification planning, and configuration-controlled product documentation.
• Hands-on experience working with control hardware in the lab, including bring-up, integration, test, troubleshooting, and verification of embedded electromechanical systems.
• Ability to debug issues spanning electronics, firmware, sensors, actuators, communications interfaces, and system integration.
• Experience designing or evaluating fault-tolerant architectures and fault response behavior for embedded control systems.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence multi-disciplinary engineering teams.
• Strong written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.

Preferred qualifications

• M.S. or Ph.D. in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, computer engineering, robotics, controls, or a related field.
• Experience with spacecraft or aerospace mechanism controllers such as gimbals, valve actuators, pump drives, solar array drive assemblies, or deployable systems.
• Experience with hardware bring-up and debug of motor controller electronics, including mixed-signal, digital, and power interfaces.
• Experience reviewing or contributing to electronics hardware design, including schematic review, PCB layout review, parts selection, design-for-test, or design-for-manufacture.
• Prior ownership of motor controller, actuator controller, or embedded avionics hardware through qualification and production.
• Familiarity with radiation effects, derating, component selection, and mitigation approaches relevant to space electronics.
• Experience with FMEA, FTA, reliability analysis, hazard analysis, or safety-critical development practices.
• Experience with qualification, acceptance, and environmental test campaigns.
• Familiarity with systems engineering and requirements management tools such as Jama or similar platforms.
• Experience working in a highly integrated development environment with firmware, electrical, systems, and test teams.

Compensation

Compensation range varies by location:

• CA applicants: $183,193.00 - $256,469.85
• CO applicants: $173,466.00 - $242,851.35
• WA applicants: $183,193.00 - $256,469.85

Other site ranges may differ.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Basic and supplemental life insurance
• Paid parental leave
• Short and long-term disability
• 401(k) with company match up to 5%
• Education Support Program
• Stock Options for all regular employees (20+ hours/week)
• Paid Time Off: Up to four weeks per year based on scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays
• Performance-based bonuses (eligibility and amounts subject to company discretion)

Employment requirements

Applicants for employment at Blue Origin must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Background check required for all positions, including Blue's Standard Background Check. Additional checks may apply depending on role requirements and location access.