{"id":3206731,"url":"https://alion.io/job/pillar-space-systems-founding-lead-avionics-engineer","title":"Founding Lead Avionics Engineer","company":{"id":4398852,"name":"Pillar Space Systems","domain":"pillarspace.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/pillar-space-systems","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":4,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"}},"role":"Hardware","role_family":"Hardware","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Los Angeles, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":185000,"max":275000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":275000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CCSDS","optional":false},{"name":"FMEA","optional":false},{"name":"KiCad","optional":false},{"name":"MIL-STD-1553","optional":false},{"name":"MIL-STD-461","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SpaceWire","optional":false},{"name":"Verilog","optional":false},{"name":"VHDL","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-12T21:30:12Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-12","last_verified_at":"2026-10-28T00:32:24Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":15,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":15},"description":"Founding Lead Avionics Engineer\nEquity: 0.3% - 1% depending on experience\nAbout Us\nWe'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.\nRole Overview\nWe are seeking a Lead Avionics Engineer to own our spacecraft avionics from first principles - the electronics that power, command, sense, and communicate for the entire vehicle.\nThis is a senior technical leadership role. You will not only define and execute the avionics architecture, but also help build the avionics team, set technical standards, mentor engineers, and establish the systems, processes, and culture required to develop flight-grade hardware.\nThis is not a narrow board-design role. You will own the full avionics system: flight computers and data handling, power conditioning and distribution, sensor and actuator interfaces, RF communications, and the harnessing that ties it all together - plus the test equipment and qualification campaigns that prove it all works. You will partner closely with flight software on processor selection, interfaces, and bring-up, and make system-level trades across electronics, software, mass, power, thermal, and reliability.\nThe ideal candidate has direct experience with spacecraft avionics, flight electronics design, hardware/software integration, environmental qualification, 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 hardware 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.\nKey Responsibilities\nOwn the avionics architecture, from early design through development, integration, test, qualification, and flight operations.\n\nLead design of flight electronics: flight computers, data handling units, power conditioning and distribution units, sensor and actuator interface boards, and motor, valve, and heater drivers.\n\nDefine power distribution and protection: solar array and battery interfaces, regulation, load switching, fault protection, and grounding and bonding.\n\nArchitect redundancy, cross-strapping, fault containment, and failure-tolerant designs appropriate for flight-grade autonomous systems.\n\nIntegrate GNC sensors and actuators (e.g., IMUs, star trackers, sun sensors, GNSS receivers, reaction wheels, magnetorquers), propulsion electronics, and payloads with well-defined electrical and data interfaces.\n\nDefine electrical interfaces and data buses across the vehicle (e.g., SpaceWire, CAN, Ethernet, MIL-STD-1553, RS-422/485, SPI, I2C, UART) and own the interface control documents with every subsystem.\n\nOwn RF and communications hardware: radio and antenna selection, link budgets, and spectrum coordination with the ground segment.\n\nMake build-vs-buy trades across COTS, upscreened, and rad-hard parts and units, and manage vendors and subcontractors through delivery.\n\nLead schematic capture, PCB layout, and design reviews, including worst-case circuit analysis, parts stress derating, board-level thermal analysis, and signal and power integrity.\n\nDesign for the space environment: total ionizing dose, single-event effects, latchup protection, EMI/EMC, outgassing, and thermal-vacuum performance.\n\nOwn harness design: wiring diagrams, connector and pinout definition, routing, and fabrication and test alongside mechanical and integration teams.\n\nBuild the avionics test infrastructure: bench test equipment, EGSE, flatsats, hardware-in-the-loop rigs, and automated functional and acceptance testing.\n\nPlan and execute qualification and acceptance campaigns: vibration, shock, thermal cycling, thermal vacuum, EMI/EMC, and radiation testing.\n\nPartner with flight software on processor and FPGA/SoC selection, board bring-up, and debugging, driving root-cause resolution across hardware and software on the bench and during integrated test campaigns.\n\nProvide technical leadership across avionics, power electronics, RF, harnessing, and electrical test efforts.\n\nHelp hire, manage, mentor, and develop avionics and electrical engineers as the team grows.\n\nEstablish hardware engineering processes: design standards, design reviews, parts and materials control, configuration management, requirements traceability, and verification discipline appropriate for flight-grade hardware.\n\nHelp define avionics requirements, interfaces, power, mass, and data budgets, verification plans, and failure-handling approaches for the vehicle.\n\nWork closely with flight software, GNC, propulsion, thermal, mechanical, systems, ground software, and mission operations to close interfaces, deliver flight units, and field an integrated flight system.\n\nWork closely with the founders and early engineering team to shape the technical roadmap, engineering culture, hiring plan, and long-term avionics strategy.\n\nRepresent the avionics function in cross-disciplinary design reviews, customer conversations, investor diligence, vendor discussions, and mission planning as needed.\n\nBasic Qualifications\nBachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or a related technical discipline.\n\n8+ years designing, building, testing, or flight-qualifying avionics or electronics for spacecraft, launch vehicles, aircraft, robotics, or other high-reliability systems.\n\nPrior experience leading technical workstreams, managing engineers, mentoring junior and mid-level engineers, or building high-performing engineering teams.\n\nDemonstrated ability to own complex hardware systems from early architecture through design, fabrication, test, qualification, and operational readiness.\n\nStrong fundamentals in analog and digital circuit design, power electronics, embedded processors, and signal integrity.\n\nExpert proficiency with schematic capture and PCB design tools (e.g., Altium, Cadence, KiCad) and a track record of taking boards from schematic through layout, fabrication, assembly, and bring-up.\n\nExperience designing hardware that interfaces with real sensors, actuators, and processors: power supplies, motor and valve drivers, data buses, and mixed-signal front ends.\n\nComfort reading and writing low-level firmware or test scripts (e.g., C, Python) and partnering with software engineers through board bring-up and debugging.\n\nExperience with fault-tolerant hardware design: redundancy, cross-strapping, fault containment, overcurrent protection, and safe power-up and power-down behavior.\n\nExperience taking hardware beyond the bench into integration, environmental testing, hardware-in-the-loop, or representative testbeds.\n\nExperience with disciplined hardware development practices: design reviews, configuration management, component derating, and documented test procedures.\n\nLab fluency: comfortable with oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, power supplies, electronic loads, JTAG/SWD debuggers, EGSE, and test automation.\n\nAbility to work independently with limited direction, identify the right next problem to solve, and drive technical work from ambiguity to qualified flight hardware.\n\nAbility to make practical system-level tradeoffs across performance, schedule, cost, mass, power, reliability, testability, and mission risk.\n\nAbility to lead through influence in a cross-functional environment spanning flight software, GNC, propulsion, thermal, mechanical, systems, and mission operations.\n\nHighly Valuable Experience\nWe do not expect every candidate to have all of the following. The strongest candidates will likely have depth in some areas and the ability to quickly learn the others.\nDemonstrated flight heritage - avionics you helped design or build that has flown and operated on orbit.\n\nExperience leading avionics, electrical, power, RF, or hardware test teams.\n\nExperience managing engineers in a startup, aerospace company, defense contractor, launch company, robotics company, or other high-reliability technical environment.\n\nExperience designing flight computers or data handling units, including processor, memory, and FPGA/SoC selection (e.g., Xilinx/AMD Zynq, Microchip PolarFire, rad-hard microcontrollers).\n\nExperience with spacecraft electrical power systems: solar arrays, lithium-ion batteries, maximum power point tracking, and power distribution and protection.\n\nExperience designing for radiation: part selection and screening, TID and SEE analysis, latchup protection, and radiation test campaigns.\n\nExperience with GNC sensors and actuators, or propulsion electronics such as valve drivers, pressure transducers, and thruster controllers.\n\nExperience with RF and communications hardware: S-band, X-band, or optical links, link budgets, and antenna integration.\n\nExperience with spacecraft data buses and protocols, including SpaceWire, MIL-STD-1553, CAN, or CCSDS.\n\nExperience with FPGA development in HDL (VHDL/Verilog) and hardware/software co-design.\n\nExperience with EMI/EMC design and test (e.g., MIL-STD-461) and grounding, bonding, and shielding strategies.\n\nExperience with flight harness design and fabrication, connector selection, and wiring standards.\n\nExperience designing test infrastructure developed internally, including flatsats, EGSE, HIL rigs, and automated acceptance test stations.\n\nExperience with environmental qualification and acceptance testing: vibration, shock, thermal vacuum, and thermal cycling.\n\nExperience with workmanship and parts standards for space hardware (e.g., IPC J-STD-001 Space Addendum, NASA-STD-8739, EEE-INST-002, GSFC-STD-7000/GEVS).\n\nExperience with reliability and mission assurance: FMEA, fault trees, worst-case circuit analysis, parts stress analysis, and hazard analysis.\n\nExperience supporting avionics from prototype through flight operations, anomaly response, and post-flight reconstruction.\n\nExperience in early-stage startups, small high-performing teams, or environments where engineers must own broad technical scope.\n\nExperience recruiting, interviewing, closing, and onboarding exceptional technical talent.\n\nWho You Are\nYou are an exceptional avionics engineer with strong fundamentals and the ability to reason from first principles.\n\nYou are a technical leader who raises the bar for the people around you.\n\nYou have managed, mentored, or led engineers before and know how to create clarity, accountability, and momentum in ambiguous environments.\n\nYou are comfortable owning large, ambiguous, mission-critical problems without waiting for detailed direction.\n\nYou can move fluidly between architecture, schematics, the bench, integration, test, team leadership, and system-level tradeoffs.\n\nYou are not just interested in drawing schematics; you want to see your hardware power up, fly, and survive real environments under real constraints.\n\nYou are excited by flight-grade hardware that has to work the first time and keep working when things go wrong.\n\nYou are willing to learn unfamiliar domains quickly and deeply, whether that means flight software, FPGAs, radiation effects, RF, power electronics, GNC, or flight operations.\n\nYou have strong opinions loosely held. You can defend a technical position, accept feedback, change course when the system demands it, and make appropriate tradeoffs in support of the mission.\n\nYou are collaborative, low-ego, and rigorous.\n\nYou want founding-level ownership and are motivated by building a company, not just completing assigned tasks.\n\nYou are excited to help build not only the product, but also the engineering organization behind it.\n\nBenef...","description_format":"text","description_chars":13589,"description_truncated":true,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Health insurance","Unlimited PTO"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Commercial Aviation"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-24T13:26:12Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":83,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.874,"p_room":0.945,"age_days":14,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":275000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/pillar-space-systems-founding-lead-avionics-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/pillar-space-systems-founding-lead-avionics-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-28T04:10:41Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":5486,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-29T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":4398852},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4398852"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fpillar-space-systems-founding-lead-avionics-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fpillar-space-systems-founding-lead-avionics-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fpillar-space-systems-founding-lead-avionics-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/pillar-space-systems-founding-lead-avionics-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fpillar-space-systems-founding-lead-avionics-engineer"}]}