P18621 Principal Electrical Engineer - Infrared Sensor Payloads Verified today

About the Role

Sierra Space is seeking a Principal Systems Engineer for Infrared Sensor Payloads to provide technical leadership and systems engineering oversight for advanced space-based infrared sensing capabilities supporting missile warning and missile tracking missions.

In this role, you will serve as a senior technical authority for the infrared mission payload and associated missile detection, tracking, and mission-processing algorithms. You will work across payload suppliers, mission software and algorithms, spacecraft systems engineering, guidance/navigation/control, avionics, mission operations, and customer organizations to ensure delivery of an integrated sensing capability that meets demanding mission performance requirements.

This position supports proliferated low-Earth-orbit missile warning and tracking architectures similar to the Space Development Agency's Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) Tracking Layer. These missions combine space-based infrared sensing, onboard processing, advanced tracking algorithms, multi-sensor data fusion, and low-latency dissemination to provide persistent detection and tracking of conventional and advanced missile threats.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the lead systems engineering interface and technical authority for the program's infrared sensor payload, including requirements, architecture, interfaces, performance, development, integration, verification, and on-orbit performance.
• Provide technical oversight of payload supplier activities throughout the development lifecycle, including design reviews, technical interchange meetings, risk reviews, qualification, acceptance testing, and delivery.
• Lead definition, decomposition, allocation, and verification of mission-level and payload-level requirements for missile warning and missile tracking performance.
• Maintain an end-to-end understanding of the sensor-to-track performance chain, including target phenomenology, backgrounds, optics, focal plane performance, detection processing, discrimination, tracking, estimation, data fusion, and mission data products.
• Provide technical leadership for development, review and verification of missile detection and tracking algorithms, including detection, association, track initiation, state estimation, track maintenance, discrimination, and multi-sensor or multi-spacecraft track fusion.
• Work closely with algorithm and software teams to translate mission performance requirements into algorithm requirements, interfaces, test objectives, and verification criteria.
• Lead and review modeling, simulation, and analysis used to predict end-to-end mission performance across representative threat trajectories, viewing geometries, backgrounds, and operational scenarios.
• Evaluate infrared sensor performance including sensitivity, noise, dynamic range, spatial and temporal resolution, radiometric performance, calibration, line-of-sight knowledge, and other characteristics affecting missile detection and track quality.
• Support development and validation of performance budgets and technical margins spanning the payload, spacecraft, mission processing, and tracking algorithms.
• Ensure appropriate allocation and management of spacecraft-to-payload interfaces, including electrical, mechanical, thermal, data, timing, pointing, jitter, line-of-sight knowledge, and onboard processing interfaces.
• Work closely with spacecraft GNC and systems engineering teams to ensure pointing knowledge, pointing control, stability, timing, and navigation performance support payload and mission-level track accuracy requirements.
• Lead technical assessment and resolution of payload and algorithm anomalies, non-conformances, performance shortfalls, and emerging technical risks.
• Develop and maintain technical risk and opportunity assessments for the payload and missile tracking capability and drive mitigation activities to closure.
• Support payload integration and test, spacecraft-level testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, mission simulations, calibration activities, and end-to-end mission verification.
• Define and evaluate test scenarios and mission performance metrics used to demonstrate missile detection, tracking, and track-quality performance.
• Support launch, early orbit operations, payload checkout, calibration, and on-orbit mission performance characterization.
• Evaluate on-orbit data and recommend changes to calibration, processing parameters, algorithms, or operational concepts to improve mission performance.
• Serve as a primary technical interface with customers, payload suppliers, algorithm developers, and other mission partners for infrared sensing and missile tracking performance.
• Present complex technical information, analyses, risks, and recommendations to program leadership, customers, suppliers, and senior technical review boards.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership across multidisciplinary teams without requiring direct organizational authority.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline and typically 14 or more years of relevant experience.
• Higher-level degree may substitute for relevant experience; relevant technical experience may be considered in lieu of required education where appropriate.
• Significant experience developing, integrating, or evaluating space-based electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensor systems or comparable advanced remote-sensing systems.
• Strong systems engineering background including requirements development and decomposition, architecture development, interface definition, technical performance management, verification and validation, and risk management.
• Experience with infrared sensor or payload performance analysis, including the ability to understand the relationship between sensor characteristics and end-to-end mission performance.
• Experience with target detection, tracking, estimation, sensor fusion, or related mission-processing algorithms.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex technical activities involving multiple engineering disciplines and external suppliers.
• Experience with modeling and simulation used to assess sensor, algorithm, or mission-level performance.
• Experience developing and presenting technical assessments and recommendations to engineering leadership, program management, customers, and technical review boards.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced development environment with aggressive program schedules and significant technical complexity.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret U.S. Government security clearance with SCI eligibility.

Preferred Requirements

• Active Top Secret U.S. Government security clearance with SCI eligibility.
• Experience with space-based missile warning, missile tracking, missile defense, or overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) missions.
• Experience with the Space Development Agency Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), particularly the Tracking Layer.
• Understanding of missile and hypersonic threat phenomenology, infrared signatures, Earth and atmospheric backgrounds, and viewing geometry.
• Experience with wide-field-of-view infrared payloads used for persistent missile warning and tracking.
• Knowledge of infrared focal plane arrays, optical systems, radiometry, detector performance, calibration, image processing, and sensor characterization.
• Experience with missile tracking algorithms including detection, clustering, association, filtering, state estimation, track initiation/termination, discrimination, and multi-object tracking.
• Experience with estimation techniques such as Kalman filtering, extended/unscented Kalman filtering, multiple-model estimation, or related tracking methods.
• Experience with multi-sensor and multi-spacecraft track fusion, including generation of 3D track solutions from distributed sensing architectures.
• Understanding of track-quality metrics and their relationship to downstream warning, cueing, targeting, or fire-control applications.
• Experience developing or evaluating onboard mission processing architectures for latency-sensitive space missions.
• Experience with MATLAB, Python, C++, or comparable tools used for sensor and algorithm modeling, simulation, and data analysis.
• Experience with Monte Carlo mission performance analysis and statistically based verification approaches.
• Experience developing and executing hardware-in-the-loop or processor-in-the-loop mission simulations.
• Knowledge of spacecraft pointing, jitter, alignment, timing, navigation, and line-of-sight error sources and their effects on geolocation and missile track accuracy.
• Experience with payload-to-spacecraft integration and environmental qualification of spaceflight hardware.
• Experience supporting payload calibration, launch and early orbit operations, on-orbit checkout, or mission data analysis.
• Experience working with U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Space Force, Space Development Agency, Missile Defense Agency, or Intelligence Community space programs.
• Experience working within rapid acquisition or proliferated spacecraft programs where cost, schedule, production scalability, and technical performance must be balanced.

Compensation

Pay Range: $164,164.00 to $225,725.50

Your actual base compensation will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related knowledge and skills, education, experience, internal equity and market competitiveness.