Engineering Manager (Electro-Optical Systems)

Location: Onsite at the Centennial, Colorado or Long Beach, California locations; travel to other sites may be required. U.S. citizenship, lawful permanent residency, protected-individual status, or eligibility for required U.S. export authorizations is required under ITAR.

Salary: $190,000–$295,000 base salary per year, plus equity and benefits.

Company

hirify.global develops autonomous spacecraft, advanced payloads, mission software, and space-based interceptors for space superiority and threat response.

What you will do

• Own the technical direction of EO/IR payload systems, including seekers, rendezvous and proximity operations sensor suites, LiDAR, and hyperspectral imaging systems.
• Lead, mentor, and grow an electro-optical engineering team across the payload development lifecycle.
• Oversee requirements definition, optical and systems design, component selection, analysis, procurement, integration, and testing.
• Evaluate vertically integrated and COTS solutions using performance, cost, schedule, and mission-risk considerations.
• Define and maintain the EO systems roadmap with New Product Engineering, Business Development, and the Program Office.
• Manage schedules, budgets, staffing, technical risk, spacecraft integration, design reviews, and stakeholder communication across multiple payload programs.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Optical Engineering, Physics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field; a master’s degree is preferred.
• 10+ years of professional experience designing and developing electro-optical systems for aerospace, defense, or other high-reliability applications.
• Demonstrated experience with EO/IR imaging systems, detector selection, optical design, system-level performance modeling, radiometric analysis, and image-quality assessment.
• Experience with proximity operations or seeker architectures, LiDAR systems, or hyperspectral imaging payloads.
• Ability to lead engineering teams and deliver complex hardware on schedule, including designs constrained by SWaP, thermal performance, radiation tolerance, and reliability.
• Ability to maintain or obtain TS//SCI clearance and meet U.S. ITAR eligibility requirements; onsite work is required.

Nice to have

• Experience with space-qualified or radiation-tolerant EO/IR detectors and focal plane arrays.
• Familiarity with Zemax/OpticStudio, CODE V, or similar optical design tools.
• Experience with LiDAR waveform processing, point-cloud generation, hyperspectral calibration, or on-orbit data processing.
• Experience with thermal and structural analysis of optomechanical systems or CCSDS and other space telemetry standards.
• Experience in a fast-paced startup or similarly dynamic environment.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on autonomous spacecraft, advanced payloads, and space-based interception technology.
• Health, dental, vision, HRA/HSA options, PTO, and paid holidays.
• 401(k), parental leave, and equity participation.
• Collaborative work across avionics, systems engineering, guidance/navigation/control, software, business development, and program teams.