Founding Lead Systems Engineer
Pillar Space · Los Angeles, CA · hybrid
USD 185,000 to 275,000 per year
FOUNDING LEAD SYSTEMS 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 Systems Engineer to own the technical baseline of our spacecraft from first principles — the requirements, architecture, interfaces, and margins that make every subsystem add up to a vehicle that works.
This is a senior technical leadership role. You will not only define and execute the vehicle and mission architecture, but also help build the systems engineering team, set technical standards, mentor engineers, and establish the systems, processes, and culture required to develop flight-grade spacecraft — rigorous enough to fly, lean enough for a startup.
This is not a narrow requirements-management role. You will own the full system: mission design and concept of operations, requirements flowdown and traceability, interface control, mass, power, propellant, and link budgets, fault management concepts, and the verification strategy that proves the vehicle is ready to fly. You will partner closely with every subsystem lead, with our launch provider, and with customers, and make the system-level trades across performance, schedule, cost, reliability, and mission risk that no single discipline can make alone.
The ideal candidate has direct experience with spacecraft systems engineering, mission design, verification and validation, 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 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 vehicle and mission architecture, from concept definition through design, integration, test, qualification, and flight operations.
- Define the mission and concept of operations with the founders and customers: mission phases, orbits and trajectories, operating modes, and interactions with the ground segment.
- Own requirements: derive and flow them down from mission to vehicle, subsystem, and component levels, and maintain traceability through verification.
- Own technical budgets and the margin policy: mass, power and energy, delta-v and propellant, pointing, link, data, thermal, and timing.
- Define and control interfaces between subsystems and with the launch vehicle, ground segment, payloads, and customers through interface control documents.
- Lead system-level trade studies — architecture, redundancy, orbit and mission design, build-vs-buy — with quantitative criteria and clear decisions.
- Define vehicle operating modes, mode transitions, and the fault management concept with flight software, GNC, and mission operations.
- Own the verification and validation strategy: the verification matrix, method selection (test, analysis, inspection, demonstration), and verification closure for flight readiness.
- Lead reliability and mission assurance analyses: FMEA/FMECA, fault trees, hazard analysis, single-point-failure assessment, and reliability modeling.
- Define the design environments — launch loads, thermal, radiation, and on-orbit — and allocate them to subsystems with structures, thermal, and avionics.
- Lead the launch vehicle interface: payload user guide compliance, coupled loads analysis coordination, separation, mission integration documentation, and range safety deliverables.
- Lead orbital debris mitigation, disposal planning, and conjunction assessment, and support spectrum, remote sensing, and launch licensing with regulators as the mission requires.
- Build system-level models and simulations of mission performance and operations, using model-based systems engineering where it earns its keep.
- Run the technical review cycle and configuration control: requirements, design, test readiness, pre-ship, and flight readiness reviews, and the change control board.
- Own the technical risk register: identify, rank, and burn down risks with the subsystem leads.
- Partner with integration and test on test planning and anomaly resolution, and with operations on launch and early orbit planning and on-orbit anomaly response.
- Provide technical leadership across systems engineering, mission design, reliability, and mission assurance efforts.
- Help hire, manage, mentor, and develop systems engineers as the team grows.
- Establish systems engineering processes: requirements management, interface control, configuration management, review gates, and margin tracking appropriate for flight-grade systems — without slowing the team down.
- Help define the technical roadmap, integrated schedule, and resource plan for the vehicle and future missions.
- Work closely with avionics, flight software, GNC, power, propulsion, RF, thermal, mechanical, test, supply chain, ground software, and mission operations to close interfaces 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 product and systems strategy.
- Represent the systems function in cross-disciplinary design reviews, customer conversations, investor diligence, regulatory and launch provider discussions, and mission planning as needed.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Physics, or a related technical discipline.
- 8+ years in systems or subsystem engineering for spacecraft, launch vehicles, aircraft, 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 a complex system's technical baseline from concept through integration, test, and operational readiness.
- Strong fundamentals across spacecraft disciplines — orbital mechanics, GNC, power, propulsion, thermal, structures, avionics, software, and communications — with depth in at least one and fluency in all.
- Experience writing, decomposing, and verifying requirements, and maintaining traceability from mission to component.
- Experience defining and controlling interfaces across disciplines and organizations.
- Experience building and managing technical budgets and margins through a design's life cycle.
- Experience leading trade studies backed by quantitative analysis (e.g., Python, MATLAB, STK, GMAT).
- Experience with reliability and fault analysis: FMEA, fault trees, and hazard analysis.
- Experience taking a system through integration and test, including verification closure and anomaly resolution.
- Strong written and verbal communication, with the ability to write clear specifications and present to engineers, customers, and investors.
- Ability to work independently with limited direction, identify the right next problem to solve, and drive technical work from ambiguity to a flight-ready vehicle.
- Ability to make practical system-level tradeoffs across performance, schedule, cost, reliability, testability, and mission risk.
- Ability to lead through influence in a cross-functional environment spanning every engineering discipline, operations, and customers.
HIGHLY VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
We do not expect every candidate to have all of