Staff Mission Lead Systems Engineer - RF Systems Verified today

About the Role

Muon seeks a Staff Mission Lead Systems Engineer for RF Systems to join the Mission Execution team. You will partner with the Mission Architecture team during early mission formulation and study phases, shaping technical concepts, driving architecture trades, and developing requirements baselines for prospective missions. When a mission you helped formulate is selected for implementation, you will become the Mission Lead Systems Engineer, owning end-to-end technical success from concept through on-orbit operations.

This role spans the full lifecycle of mission design: from initial formulation with Business Development, through execution with space vehicle hardware and software teams, to on-orbit validation and mission performance monitoring with Operations. You will be the primary technical interface with customers and cross-functional team leads to develop requirements and ICDs, work with other Systems Engineers on system modeling, develop test plans with AI&T teams, and identify and reduce risk across the program.

Muon is a lean and agile team. Success in this role requires your ability to right-size analysis and processes for differing levels of system maturity and risk, flexibility to work with changing demands and schedules, and effective communication of technical content to diverse audiences.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner with Mission Architecture team during study efforts to develop mission concepts, run architecture trade studies, and shape technical baselines for prospective missions and proposals.
• Develop and maintain mission-level system models including architecture, requirements, interfaces, and behavior models from study phase into implementation.
• Serve as 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 Muon mission design process for your designated mission, ensuring alignment with program needs.
• Translate customer objectives and stakeholder needs into clear, verifiable, and actionable technical requirements.
• Serve as primary technical point of contact for your designated mission, interfacing with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders on all technical matters.
• Manage requirements traceability, verification, and validation.
• Define mission 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.
• Foster deep collaboration with and provide technical direction to systems, hardware, software, data, ground segment, and operations teams.
• Serve as Mission Lead Systems Engineer for one mission while contributing expertise and support to other Muon missions.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of engineering processes, tools, and methodologies.

Required Qualifications

• Direct engineering experience with RF systems: RF payload/instrument design, link budget analysis, spectrum and regulatory considerations, and mission-level RF architecture trades.
• Bachelor's degree or higher in an engineering field plus 8 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 (Chief Engineer, Lead Systems Engineer) on at least one complex system design for USG, DoD, Intelligence Community, and/or commercial customers.
• Experience with major space programs for USG, DoD, Intelligence Community, and/or commercial customers.
• Experience with USG/IC acquisition programs, standards for space systems development, and mission assurance standards.
• Strong understanding of USG/IC contracts and their artifacts.
• Experience supporting proposal development for government contracts (RFI/RFP responses).
• 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 fast-paced environment.
• Active TS/SCI security clearance.

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Experience with Cameo Systems Modeler or equivalent SysML MBSE tool to capture mission architecture, requirements, interfaces, and behavior.
• 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 such as optical, multispectral, and RF, and their associated data pipelines.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary range: $177,000 to $246,000 plus competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package. Final compensation based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location.

Full-time employees receive 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.

Employment Requirements

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.