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Lead Mission Assurance Engineer Verified today

The Exploration Company · Bordeaux, France · Production · first seen 2026-07-16
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About the role

We are building spacecraft for humanity. As Lead Mission Assurance Engineer, you will own the end-to-end strategy that ensures our spacecraft is safe, reliable, and mission ready. You will be embedded with design, test, and operations teams, drive the vehicle safety architecture, and lead a team of approximately 6 mission assurance engineers.

Key responsibilities

  • Own the vehicle safety architecture to meet all safety and reliability requirements from internal standards, ISS program, ESA, and CNES entry safety standards.
  • Assess pre-flight risks and potential mitigations with vehicle design, analysis, and operations teams.
  • Perform and review FMECA, FTA, PRA, and RAM analyses to identify risks and failure modes.
  • Define and validate the spacecraft fault management and FDIR architecture.
  • Work with avionics, software, and operations teams to implement fault management strategies for safe off-nominal behavior.
  • Support on-console operations as the Mission Assurance representative and drive in-flight anomaly resolution.
  • Lead and mentor a team of safety, reliability, and fault management engineers. Set priorities, review work, and develop technical depth.
  • Champion a culture of mission assurance through first-principles thinking, disciplined verification, and data-driven decision-making.
  • Report RAMS status, residual risk, and flight readiness to program leadership.
  • Drive corrective actions from anomalies, test failures, and operational events into design improvements.

What we're looking for

  • Master's degree in an engineering or science discipline.
  • 8+ years of experience in RAMS, mission assurance, or systems safety on complex hardware systems.
  • Experience leading teams or projects with proven ability to set technical direction and deliver results.
  • Proficiency with reliability tools such as FMECA, FTA, and reliability block diagrams.
  • Deep understanding of fault tolerance, redundancy management, and failure detection/isolation/recovery.
  • Technical knowledge of spacecraft systems and operations including communications, orbital mechanics, avionics, propulsion, thermal control, and life support systems.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills for technical information.
  • Ability to manage projects and tasks effectively while meeting aggressive deadlines.
  • Resilience and performance under pressure when facing technical challenges.
  • Excellent organizational and interpersonal skills.

Bonus qualifications

  • Experience developing and validating FDIR logic, watchdog strategies, and fault response sequences.
  • Previous experience in a customer-facing role working through design requirements, test acceptance, and verification with government customers such as ESA or NASA.
  • Ability and willingness to mentor other engineers while being a significant individual contributor.
  • Passion for advancing the commercial space industry and human spaceflight.

About us

We value agile decision-making while keeping goals and systems in mind. We are open and collaborative, transparent about risks and obstacles. We believe we are democratizing space and offer a rare opportunity to contribute to this mission.

Relocation assistance is provided for those willing to relocate, including visa sponsorship where applicable. Offers are contingent upon successful completion of a background check.