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Avionics Engineer

Wardstone
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El Segundo$100k - $130kFull-timePosted 5d ago

About the role

You will own the electronics on Wardstone’s interceptors, from board-level design and power systems to sensor integration, harnessing, and the electrical interface to the launcher. This is a hands-on role. You’ll design boards, build and debug them yourself, and take them through qualification to flight.

Responsibilities

  • Design the electronics
  • - Define the avionics architecture, including the flight computer, power distribution, and data buses.
  • - Design, simulate, and lay out PCBs for computing, sensing, actuation, and power.
  • - Own schematic capture, layout, component selection, DFM, and vendor work.
  • - Develop reliable power systems, including DC–DC conversion, batteries, protection circuits, and transient management.
  • Integrate sensors and actuators
  • - Integrate the seeker, IMUs, GNSS, and electromechanical actuators.
  • - Design signal-conditioning circuits and low-latency sensor and actuator interfaces for the flight software and autopilot.
  • - Design wiring harnesses with the mechanical team, along with the electrical interface to the launcher.
  • Design for harsh environments
  • - Design electronics to survive high-G launch, vibration, shock, and thermal extremes, working with the mechanical team on packaging and analysis.
  • - Lead electrical qualification testing, including EMI/EMC, vibration, thermal, and high-G testing.
  • Bring up and integrate hardware
  • - Work with embedded software engineers on processor selection, drivers, and the hardware-firmware interface.
  • - Bring up, debug, and iterate hardware in the lab using scopes, logic analyzers, and DAQs.
  • - Support vehicle integration, ground testing, and flight test.
  • Own it end to end
  • - Write requirements, test plans, and documentation.
  • - Take hardware from concept through prototype and test to flight-ready.

Qualifications

  • B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
  • 2+ years designing and fielding electronics hardware, including at least one system taken from design through test. Student rocketry or similar project teams count.
  • Strong PCB design experience (Altium, KiCad, or similar), including mixed-signal and power electronics.
  • Strong fundamentals in circuit analysis, signal integrity, noise, grounding, and EMI/EMC.
  • Experience integrating sensors, actuators, and power systems.
  • Hands-on prototyping skills, including soldering, rework, bring-up, and debugging.
  • Comfortable with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers, and other lab equipment.
  • Must be a U.S. person as defined by ITAR (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual). [Must be eligible to obtain a U.S. security clearance.]

Skills

Required:Avionics architecture definitionPCB designPower electronicsSensor integrationElectrical qualification testingHardware bring-upSchematic capture / layout
Nice to have:Electromagnetic compatibilityEmbedded firmware interaction
Last updated Oct 21, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Wardstone

Satellites for Missile Defense

Wardstone is a space defense-tech company developing next-generation capabilities to protect the United States and its allies from missiles and other space-based threats. We design, build, and deploy satellites equipped with space-based interceptors to kinetically counter hypersonic and ballistic missiles.

space-explorationsatellitesrocketryaerospace
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