Senior Mission Lead Systems Engineer, Commercial Payloads
Muon Space· Engineering - Systems and GNC
Hybrid (San Jose, CA)$190k - $219kfull-timePosted 1mo ago
About the role
Senior Mission Lead Systems Engineer responsible for the end-to-end technical leadership of a Muon mission, from concept through on-orbit operations, with a focus on high-rigor government and demanding commercial programs. Hybrid role with on-site work in San Jose, CA.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the ultimate technical authority for your designated mission, leading conceptualization, design, and development of the mission; drive cross-functional technical trades and decisions.
- Lead tailoring and implementation of the Muon mission design process for your designated mission.
- Translate customer objectives and stakeholder needs into clear, verifiable, and actionable technical requirements.
- Serve as the primary technical point of contact for your designated mission with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders.
- Manage requirements traceability, verification, and validation.
- Define mission CONOPS and manage subsystem budgets (power, data, mass, pointing/stability).
- Identify and mitigate internal and external mission risks, communicating impacts effectively.
- Assess and coordinate design changes across disciplines throughout the program lifecycle.
- Lead design, test readiness, and flight readiness reviews.
- Monitor on-orbit spacecraft and data pipelines to ensure mission success and customer satisfaction.
- Foster collaboration with systems, hardware, software, data, ground segment, and operations teams; support other missions as needed.
- Contribute as Mission Lead Systems Engineer for one mission while providing general SE support to other Muon missions; deputize as needed.
- Contribute to continuous improvement of engineering processes, tools, and methodologies.
Qualifications
- B.S. or higher in engineering; 10+ years of experience in complex system, mission architecture, and/or spacecraft design with high-rigor development for government and/or demanding commercial customers.
- Demonstrated experience as a technical lead (e.g., Chief Engineer, Lead Systems Engineer) on at least one complex system design for USG/DoD/IC and/or commercial customer.
- Experience interfacing with and managing external customers.
- Extensive experience in system modeling, systems analysis, and simulations.
- Proven history of system integration and delivery of complex systems.
- Experience in formal requirements management for multi-disciplinary projects.
- Demonstrated project management skills and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
- Excellent communication, presentation, and coordination skills.
- Ability to rapidly adapt roles/responsibilities in a fast-paced environment.
Skills
Required:Technical leadershipRequirements managementSystems engineering
Benefits
- equity grant
- comprehensive benefits package (medical, dental, vision)
- 401k retirement plan
- short & long term disability and life insurance
- three weeks paid vacation
- 12 paid holidays
- unlimited sick time
- paid parental leave
Last updated Sep 19, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
About Muon Space
The Mission Foundry — designing, building, and operating high-performance satellite constellations for National Security, civil, and commercial customers.
Design, build, and operate mission-optimized satellite constellations with Muon Space.
Mission FoundryMission DesignSpacecraft PlatformsPayloads & Data ProductsOrbital AIConstellation ProductionManaged Orbital Services
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