Staff Mission Lead Systems Engineer (Space Systems)

Location: Hybrid in San Jose, California; on-site in the San Jose office three days per week. Applicants must meet U.S. export-control eligibility requirements for access to controlled information.

Salary: $216,000–$242,000 annually, plus equity and benefits.

Company

hirify.global designs, builds, and operates low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations that deliver Earth and climate intelligence for commercial and government customers.

What you will do

• Develop mission concepts, conduct architecture trade studies, and establish technical baselines during early formulation and proposal phases.
• Own the mission-level architecture, requirements, interfaces, behavior models, CONOPS, and subsystem budgets through implementation and operations.
• Serve as the technical authority and primary technical interface for customers, partners, and cross-functional engineering leads.
• Lead system integration, design changes, test readiness reviews, flight readiness reviews, verification, and validation.
• Identify and mitigate mission risks while coordinating technical decisions across systems, hardware, software, data, ground segment, and operations teams.
• Monitor on-orbit spacecraft and data pipelines to validate mission performance and customer requirements.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in engineering and 10+ years of experience in complex systems, mission architecture, and/or spacecraft design.
• Experience serving as a technical lead on complex systems for U.S. Government, Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, or demanding commercial customers.
• Experience with major space programs, U.S. Government or Intelligence Community acquisition programs, mission assurance standards, and space-systems development standards.
• Strong understanding of U.S. Government and Intelligence Community contracts and their artifacts, including proposal development for RFIs and RFPs.
• Extensive experience in system modeling, systems analysis, simulations, formal requirements management, system integration, and delivery of complex systems.
• Active TS/SCI security clearance and eligibility to access U.S. export-controlled information are required.

Nice to have

• RF systems engineering, including payload or instrument design, link budgets, spectrum considerations, and mission-level RF architecture trades.
• Experience with Cameo Systems Modeler or an equivalent SysML model-based systems engineering tool.
• Software skills in Python or Julia and familiarity with version control and code review.
• Experience with remote-sensing instruments and associated data pipelines.

Culture & Benefits

• Lean, agile environment with flexibility to adapt analysis and processes to mission maturity and risk.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k), disability insurance, and life insurance.
• Three weeks of paid vacation for new employees, 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time, and paid parental leave.
• Full-time employees receive equity compensation.