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Senior Director, EO/IR Instrument Engineering Verified today

Muon Space · Mountain View, CA · Payload · first seen 2026-10-20
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About the role

Muon seeks a Senior Director of EO/IR Instrument Engineering to lead the strategy, development, and delivery of the electro-optical and infrared instrument portfolio, from system architecture through on-orbit calibration. You will build, mentor, and guide a multidisciplinary engineering organization that is roughly doubling in size, while establishing the technical direction and operational rigor needed to scale across a growing portfolio of flight programs. As a senior technical and organizational leader, you will own instrument performance, cost, schedule, and overall business outcomes, ensuring alignment between engineering execution and mission objectives. You report to the SVP of Mission Execution and serve on the Mission Execution leadership team, shaping Muon's EO/IR strategy, developing organizational capabilities, and driving successful execution of the instrument portfolio.

This position is hybrid and requires working on-site in Mountain View, CA three days per week.

Responsibilities

  • Set EO/IR strategy for the company: define which missions and markets Muon pursues in partnership with the executive team; own the multi-year investment plan for instrument technology, lab and test infrastructure, and operating budget; represent Muon's EO/IR capability to customers, partners and the national security community at the executive level.
  • Own instrument delivery: be the single accountable owner for EO/IR instrument performance, cost and schedule on every program Muon flies; commit credible instrument estimates to program management and proposal teams; run the technical review cadence for the portfolio including requirements, PDR/CDR, test readiness, pre-ship and on-orbit performance reviews.
  • Set the technical direction: work with the Product Team to define the EO/IR instrument roadmap including reusable architectures, common focal plane and electronics building blocks, and make/buy strategy for optics, detectors and cryocoolers; hold final technical authority on radiometric performance budgets (SNR, NEdT, MTF, stray light, geolocation), calibration approach and contamination control; drive design-for-manufacture so instruments can be built at constellation rates.
  • Build the organization: hire roughly 20 engineers and managers over the next year while maintaining high hiring standards; develop the managers who report to you and create clear career paths for senior individual contributors; stand up the processes, lab capability and test infrastructure the team needs to scale.
  • Lead across Muon: partner with Mission Systems on mission requirements and end-to-end performance, and with Production and Supply Chain on the transition from development to rate production; represent EO/IR instruments to customers, in proposals and at the Mission Execution leadership table.

Qualifications

  • BS in physics, optical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering or a related field.
  • 20+ years developing EO/IR imaging instruments, with at least 10 years leading engineering organizations.
  • Technical leadership of at least two space flight EO/IR instruments from concept through launch and on-orbit checkout.
  • Led an organization of 40+ people through multiple layers of management, with accountability for its budget.
  • Working command of the full instrument chain: optical design, focal plane arrays and readout electronics, thermal and cryogenic design, radiometric calibration and on-orbit performance.
  • A record of owning instrument cost and schedule commitments, and of representing an instrument or payload portfolio to customers and senior executives.
  • Ability to work on-site at Bay Area facilities.
  • U.S. person status as required by ITAR/EAR.

Nice-to-have skills

  • MS or PhD in Optics, Physics or Electrical Engineering.
  • MWIR/LWIR instrument experience, including cooled focal planes (HgCdTe, InSb or T2SL) and cryocooler integration.
  • Delivery of multiple units of the same instrument design, ideally at constellation scale.
  • Small satellite or commercial space experience where cost and cycle time drove the architecture.
  • Earth observation, wildfire, weather or national security EO/IR mission background.
  • Active security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one.
  • Prior VP or director-of-directors role, and experience building an organization through rapid growth, including hiring and developing first-time managers.

What success looks like in year one

  • An EO/IR strategy and multi-year investment plan are approved by the executive team.
  • Every EO/IR program has an instrument plan, budget and schedule that the team is hitting and that programs can plan against.
  • The Instrument AI&T manager is hired and the organization is staffed to plan.
  • A reusable instrument architecture and roadmap are in use on new proposals.
  • Calibration and test flow from lab to orbit is documented, repeatable and producing flight data that meets requirements.

Compensation

Salary range: $256,000 to $293,000, plus competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401k retirement plan, short and long term disability and life insurance, three weeks paid vacation, 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time and paid parental leave. Final compensation based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location.