Founding Lead Avionics Engineer
Pillar Space · Los Angeles, CA · hybrid
USD 185,000 to 275,000 per year
FOUNDING LEAD AVIONICS ENGINEER
Equity: 0.3% – 1% depending on experience
ABOUT US
We're a stealth team building space hardware at the edge of what's currently possible — high-stakes, flight-grade systems where the engineering bar is unforgiving and the upside is enormous. While we can't share full details yet, our founding and early engineering team includes talent from SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Impulse Space, the group includes people who've pulled off feats almost no one else on Earth has.
ROLE OVERVIEW
We are seeking a Lead Avionics Engineer to own our spacecraft avionics from first principles — the electronics that power, command, sense, and communicate for the entire vehicle.
This is a senior technical leadership role. You will not only define and execute the avionics architecture, but also help build the avionics team, set technical standards, mentor engineers, and establish the systems, processes, and culture required to develop flight-grade hardware.
This is not a narrow board-design role. You will own the full avionics system: flight computers and data handling, power conditioning and distribution, sensor and actuator interfaces, RF communications, and the harnessing that ties it all together — plus the test equipment and qualification campaigns that prove it all works. You will partner closely with flight software on processor selection, interfaces, and bring-up, and make system-level trades across electronics, software, mass, power, thermal, and reliability.
The ideal candidate has direct experience with spacecraft avionics, flight electronics design, hardware/software integration, environmental qualification, and technical team leadership. We recognize that very few people have all of this. What matters most is that you have exceptional fundamentals, have led real hardware systems from concept toward flight, have managed or mentored engineers in high-performance technical environments, and can operate independently in ambiguity while making sound engineering tradeoffs. You will have direct ownership over one of the company's core technical challenges.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Own the avionics architecture, from early design through development, integration, test, qualification, and flight operations.
- Lead design of flight electronics: flight computers, data handling units, power conditioning and distribution units, sensor and actuator interface boards, and motor, valve, and heater drivers.
- Define power distribution and protection: solar array and battery interfaces, regulation, load switching, fault protection, and grounding and bonding.
- Architect redundancy, cross-strapping, fault containment, and failure-tolerant designs appropriate for flight-grade autonomous systems.
- Integrate GNC sensors and actuators (e.g., IMUs, star trackers, sun sensors, GNSS receivers, reaction wheels, magnetorquers), propulsion electronics, and payloads with well-defined electrical and data interfaces.
- Define electrical interfaces and data buses across the vehicle (e.g., SpaceWire, CAN, Ethernet, MIL-STD-1553, RS-422/485, SPI, I2C, UART) and own the interface control documents with every subsystem.
- Own RF and communications hardware: radio and antenna selection, link budgets, and spectrum coordination with the ground segment.
- Make build-vs-buy trades across COTS, upscreened, and rad-hard parts and units, and manage vendors and subcontractors through delivery.
- Lead schematic capture, PCB layout, and design reviews, including worst-case circuit analysis, parts stress derating, board-level thermal analysis, and signal and power integrity.
- Design for the space environment: total ionizing dose, single-event effects, latchup protection, EMI/EMC, outgassing, and thermal-vacuum performance.
- Own harness design: wiring diagrams, connector and pinout definition, routing, and fabrication and test alongside mechanical and integration teams.
- Build the avionics test infrastructure: bench test equipment, EGSE, flatsats, hardware-in-the-loop rigs, and automated functional and acceptance testing.
- Plan and execute qualification and acceptance campaigns: vibration, shock, thermal cycling, thermal vacuum, EMI/EMC, and radiation testing.
- Partner with flight software on processor and FPGA/SoC selection, board bring-up, and debugging, driving root-cause resolution across hardware and software on the bench and during integrated test campaigns.
- Provide technical leadership across avionics, power electronics, RF, harnessing, and electrical test efforts.
- Help hire, manage, mentor, and develop avionics and electrical engineers as the team grows.
- Establish hardware engineering processes: design standards, design reviews, parts and materials control, configuration management, requirements traceability, and verification discipline appropriate for flight-grade hardware.
- Help define avionics requirements, interfaces, power, mass, and data budgets, verification plans, and failure-handling approaches for the vehicle.
- Work closely with flight software, GNC, propulsion, thermal, mechanical, systems, ground software, and mission operations to close interfaces, deliver flight units, and field an integrated flight system.
- Work closely with the founders and early engineering team to shape the technical roadmap, engineering culture, hiring plan, and long-term avionics strategy.
- Represent the avionics function in cross-disciplinary design reviews, customer conversations, investor diligence, vendor discussions, and mission planning as needed.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or a related technical discipline.
- 8+ years designing, building, testing, or flight-qualifying avionics or electronics for spacecraft, launch vehicles, aircraft, robotics, or other high-reliability systems.
- Prior experience leading technical workstreams, managing engineers, mentoring junior and mid-level engineers, or building high-performing engineering teams.
- Demonstrated ability to own complex hardware systems from early architecture through design, fabrication, test, qualification, and operational readiness.
- Strong fundamentals in analog and digital circuit design, power electronics, embedded processors, and signal integrity.
- Expert proficiency with schematic capture and PCB design tools (e.g., Altium, Cadence, KiCad) and a track record of taking boards from schematic through layout, fabrication, assembly, and bring-up.
- Experience designing hardware that interfaces with real sensors, actuators, and processors: power supplies, motor and valve drivers, data buses, and mixed-signal front ends.
- Comfort reading and writing low-level firmware or test scripts (e.g., C, Python) and partnering with software engineers through board bring-up and debugging.
- Experience with fault-tolerant hardware design: redundancy, cross-strapping, fault containment, overcurrent protection, and safe power-up and power-down behavior.
- Experience taking hardware beyond the bench into integration, environmental testing, hardware-in-the-loop, or representative testbeds.
- Experience with disciplined hardware development practices: design reviews, configuration management, component derating, and documented test procedures.
- Lab fluency: comfortable with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, power supplies, electronic loads, JTAG/SWD debuggers, EGSE, and test automation.
- Ability to work independently with limited direction, identify the right next problem to solve, and drive technical work from ambiguity to qualified flight hardware.
- Ability to make practical system-level tradeoffs across performance, schedule, cost, mass, power, reliability, testability, and mission risk.
- Ability to lead through influence in a cross-functional environment spanning flight software, GNC, propulsion, thermal, mechanical, sys