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Senior Mission Lead Systems Engineer, Commercial Payloads Verified today

Muon Space · San Jose, CA · Space Systems · first seen 2026-09-05
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About the role

Muon seeks a Senior Mission Lead Systems Engineer to join the Mission Engineering team. You will serve as the technical lead for a specific mission, owning end-to-end technical success from concept through on-orbit operations. This role spans government and high-assurance commercial programs, including U.S. Government, Department of Defense, and Intelligence Community customers.

You will have a full lifecycle view of mission execution: initial formulation with Business Development, execution with space vehicle hardware and software teams, and on-orbit validation with Operations. You will be the primary technical interface with customers and cross-functional team leads, developing requirements and Interface Control Documents (ICDs), performing system modeling, developing test plans, and reducing program risk.

Muon is a lean, agile team. Success requires the ability to right-size analysis and processes for different levels of system maturity and risk, flexibility with changing demands and schedules, and clear communication of technical content to diverse audiences.

Responsibilities

  • Serve as the ultimate technical authority for your designated mission, leading conceptualization, design, and development. Drive critical cross-functional technical trades and decisions.
  • Lead tailoring and implementation of the Muon mission design process for your mission, ensuring alignment with program needs.
  • Translate customer objectives and stakeholder needs into clear, verifiable, and actionable technical requirements.
  • Serve as the primary technical point of contact for your mission, interfacing with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders.
  • Manage requirements traceability, verification, and validation.
  • Define mission Concept of Operations (CONOPS) and manage subsystem budgets including power, data, mass, and pointing/stability.
  • Identify and mitigate internal and external mission risks, communicating impacts effectively.
  • Assess and coordinate design changes across disciplines throughout the program lifecycle.
  • Lead design, test readiness, and flight readiness reviews.
  • Monitor on-orbit spacecraft and data pipelines to ensure mission success and customer requirements are met.
  • Provide technical direction to systems, hardware, software, data, ground segment, and operations teams for your mission.
  • Contribute general systems engineering expertise and support to other Muon missions, potentially deputizing for other Mission Lead Systems Engineers.
  • Contribute to continuous improvement of engineering processes, tools, and methodologies.

Qualifications

  • B.S. or higher degree in an engineering field.
  • 10 or more years of experience in complex system, mission architecture, and/or spacecraft design, with focus on high-rigor development for government and/or demanding commercial customers.
  • Demonstrated experience as a technical lead (e.g., Chief Engineer, Lead Systems Engineer) on at least one complex system design for a USG, DoD, IC, or commercial customer.
  • Direct experience interfacing with and managing expectations for external customers.
  • Extensive experience in system modeling, systems analysis, and running simulations.
  • Proven history of system integration and delivery of complex systems.
  • Experience in formal requirements management for a multi-disciplinary project.
  • Demonstrated project management skills and ability to collaborate with other engineering disciplines.
  • Excellent communication, presentation, and coordination skills.
  • Ability to rapidly change roles and responsibilities in a high-paced environment.

Nice-to-have skills

  • Experience with major space programs for USG, DoD, IC, or commercial customers.
  • Knowledge of standards for space systems development and mission assurance.
  • Experience with Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) subsystem requirements, analysis, and trade spaces for Earth observation missions.
  • Experience with space system Assembly, Integration, and Test (AI&T) processes.
  • Experience supporting proposal development (RFI/RFP responses) for government contracts.
  • Software skills in Python or Julia.
  • Familiarity with software engineering tools and processes including version control and code review.
  • Knowledge of industry standards for electrical and/or software quality practices.
  • Remote sensing instrument experience across multiple modalities (optical, multispectral, RF) and associated data pipelines.
  • Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.

Compensation

Salary range: $190,000 to $219,000, 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 for new employees, 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time, and paid parental leave.

Workplace

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

Export control

This position requires access to export controlled information. Applicant must either be a U.S. person (U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee), eligible to access export controlled information without required export authorization, or eligible and reasonably likely to obtain required export authorization from the applicable U.S. government agency. The company may decline to pursue export licensing for legitimate business reasons.