About the roleMuon seeks an Engineering Manager to lead the team that designs the core avionics at the heart of every Muon spacecraft - flight computers, power systems and batteries, ADCS controller, and related electronics. Unlike our mission-facing teams, this team is design-focused: architecting, designing, qualifying, and evolving the avionics products that are reused across our satellite platforms and missions.
This is a hands-on management role for a leader with an extensive electrical design background: you'll manage and grow the team while staying deeply engaged technically - driving architecture, reviewing schematics and layouts, and setting the design quality bar.
This position is hybrid and requires working on-site in our San Jose, CA office three days per week.
Responsibilities- Lead, mentor, and grow the avionics design team along with planning resourcing across concurrent development efforts and hire as the team scales
- Own delivery of Muon's core avionics - flight computers, power systems and batteries, ADCS controllers, and related electronics - from architecture through design, qualification, and production support
- Drive the avionics roadmap: improve performance, reliability, cost, and manufacturability, and maximize standardization and reuse across satellite platforms
- Stay hands-on: contribute to architecture definition, review schematics and layouts, and support bring-up and debug alongside the team
- Set and uphold electrical design standards - design reviews, derating and worst-case analysis, documentation, and ECO/DCO discipline
- Own avionics qualification and test strategies, partnering with Hardware Reliability & Test to ensure consistent qualification across products
- Partner with embedded software, mechanical, thermal, systems, and production teams to ensure successful hardware/software integration and manufacturability
- Invest in developing engineers through coaching, design feedback, and growth planning
Required Qualifications- 8+ years of experience designing complex, high-reliability electronics that operate in harsh environments (spacecraft, aviation, automotive, robotics, or similar)
- 2+ years managing or technically leading engineering teams
- Extensive hands-on electrical design experience: architecture, schematic capture, PCB layout, and board bring-up for complex mixed-signal systems
- Deep understanding across avionics domains: embedded processing, power conversion and distribution, battery systems, and control electronics
- Experience taking boards from concept through qualification and production
- Strong grasp of hardware/software integration: microcontrollers and common interfaces (UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, Ethernet)
- Excellent leadership, communication, and presentation skills; ability to move fluidly between team leadership and hands-on engineering
- B.S. or higher in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field
Nice-to-have Skills- Flight heritage - avionics you designed that has successfully operated in space
- Experience designing radiation-tolerant electronics using COTS components
- Experience with power electronics for space applications (batteries, switching converters, load switches)
- Experience with FPGAs, SoCs, or embedded Linux platforms
- EMI/EMC design and test experience
- Test automation and data analysis using Python or similar
SalaryThe salary range for this role is $186,000 - $202,000, plus a competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location as assessed during the interview process.
