What are the responsibilities and job description for the Director of Hardware Engineering position at Muon Space?
About the role
Muon seeks a Director of Hardware Engineering to join our team. The ideal candidate is a visionary leader with a deep technical background in high-reliability hardware development, a passion for solving hard problems, and the ability to inspire and guide multidisciplinary teams toward successful outcomes.
Location - This position will be based in Mountain View, California, United States.
Responsibilities
- Lead a talented team responsible for designing, validating, and deploying high-performance spacecraft solutions that support our customers missions.
- Collaborate internally and externally to drive the entire lifecycle of hardware development—from feasibility studies and mission formulation to prototype development to manufacturing, test, and launch.
- Provide technical leadership and manage teams of mechanical, electrical, and systems engineers and lead the end-to-end hardware development process.
- Oversee Muon's hardware development process ensuring standards, systems and processes are efficient and effective.
- Play a key role in maturing and developing Muon's spacecraft architecture, ensuring the end product is both market leading and manufacturable at scale.
- Support the evaluation of external vendors to facilitate prototyping, qualification, and provide support for high-rate spacecraft manufacturing.
- Support new business acquisition efforts including resource estimation, scheduling, and costing
- Lead hardware engineering planning efforts including headcount planning and budgeting
Qualifications
- Bachelor's or master's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience
- 10 years of experience in high reliability hardware development and testing with at least 5 years in a technical leadership or technical line management role
- Deep experience with aerospace development cycles and associated validation practices, tests, and approaches
- Exceptional problem-solving skills and a data-driven approach to decision-making
- Experience interfacing with interdisciplinary teams like instrument, embedded, and cloud software teams during product development
- Experience with systems and tools required to transition complex hardware products from design to scalable manufacturing operations
- Excellent communication skills including the ability to communicate complex concepts simply and efficiently
- Excited to work in a fast-paced environment with new challenges each week
Nice-to-have Skills
- Experience with LEO spacecraft design
- Experience with RF and Optical space-based instruments
- Experience working with change control and manufacturing control systems (PDM, PLM, MES, etc.)
Salary
The salary range for this role is $210k - $250k and will depend on a candidate's skills geographic location, qualifications, and experience as defined during the interview process.
About Muon Space
Founded in 2021, Muon Space is an end-to-end Space Systems Provider that designs, builds, and operates LEO satellite constellations delivering mission-critical data. Our revolutionary, integrated technology stack enables customers to optimize every dimension of their missions for faster time-to-orbit and superior constellation remote sensing performance. Our state-of-the-art facility in the heart of Silicon Valley is optimized for manufacturing spacecraft and rapid, flexible payload integration at scale. From climate monitoring to national security, Muon Space is dedicated to delivering Earth Intelligence for a safer and more resilient world.
Taking Care of Our Team
At Muon salary is only part of our total compensation package. In addition to salary, we provide equity compensation as well as benefits including medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401k retirement plan, short & long term disability and life insurance. We also offer three weeks paid vacation for new employees, along with 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time and paid parental leave.
Our mission embraces the entire planet and we believe our team should too. Muon is dedicated to creating a diverse and dynamic company and workforce. We believe in equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, age, national origin, citizenship, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or gender identity. We value diversity in the workplace, and that starts with our applicants. We encourage you to apply, even if you don't check all the boxes, and we look forward to reviewing your application! In addition, if you need a reasonable accommodation as part of your application for employment or interviews with us, please let us know.
ITAR/EAR Requirements
This position requires access to export controlled information. To conform to U.S. Government export regulations applicable to that information, applicant must either be (A) a U.S. person, defined as a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (green card holder), (iii) refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, (B) eligible to access the export controlled information without a required export authorization, or (C) eligible and reasonably likely to obtain the required export authorization from the applicable U.S. government agency. The Company may, for legitimate business reasons, decline to pursue any export licensing process.
Salary : $210,000 - $250,000
