Principal Avionics Engineer - Neutron Verified today
About Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems. We move fast, build real hardware for meaningful missions, and make the impossible routine.
About the Role
The Neutron Avionics team owns every avionics system on the vehicle: flight computers, power distribution, sensing, comms, and flexible harness assemblies. Almost all are developed and produced internally, which means the engineers who design it also see it fly.
As Principal Avionics Engineer, you are the technical authority for avionics hardware, circuit design, PCB layout, and test strategy and coverage. This is a hands-on technical leadership role with no direct reports. Your influence comes from your engineering judgement, your ability to solve problems nobody has solved before, and the engineers you make better along the way.
What You'll Own
- Act as technical lead and subject matter expert for avionics hardware, hands on, on the bench, and in reviews
- Take avionics components and architectures through the full lifecycle: requirements, R&D, prototyping, qualification, and production
- Review and approve engineering changes, oversee board and flex assembly design, design analyses, and design validation
- Own technical risk to avionics and vehicle, assess probability and consequence, and make the trade calls
- Lead root cause analysis on anomalies and failures, and ensure fixes stick
- Lead small teams through significant engineering challenges
- Assess emerging technologies and shape the avionics technology pipeline and development strategy
- Improve how we engineer: R&D practice, design for manufacture, engineering change, and processes that let us scale
- Mentor and coach engineers at every level, contribute to performance reviews, and help shape resourcing plans and hiring strategy
What You'll Bring
Core requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in a relevant engineering discipline, or equivalent professional experience
- 8+ years of relevant industry experience
- High proficiency in at least two of: analogue design, high-speed digital, power electronics
- Strong command of electronics design tools, including circuit simulation and analysis
- Genuine aptitude for technical guidance and mentoring, at any level
- Excellent written and verbal communication, and demonstrated organisation and planning skills
Bonus points for:
- Hardware taken from concept all the way through to production
- Understanding of space environmental testing: vibration, shock, thermal, TVAC
- Familiarity with formal systems engineering: requirements management, compliance matrices
- Experience building and pitching business cases for capital investment
- Experience setting technical strategy and communicating it to individual contributors
- Track record of driving cross-functional initiatives through influence rather than authority
What We Expect
- Ownership mentality with ability to drive tasks and projects to completion independently
- Ability to thrive in ambiguous, fast-changing environments where requirements evolve rapidly
- Balance speed with quality; move quickly while maintaining appropriate rigour
- No task is beneath you; roll up your sleeves and do what's needed for mission success
- Bias for action; prioritise getting hands on, building and testing hardware to get results early
Important Information
For New Zealand roles: background checks will be undertaken prior to employment offers. You must be eligible to access equipment and data regulated by ITAR. You may be ineligible if you do not hold citizenship of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the European Union, or a NATO country, or if you hold ineligible dual citizenship or nationality.