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Director, Platforms & Mission Engineering

Irvine, CA

Join a team where your impact reaches beyond the stars! At Terran Orbital, you’re not just part of the system – you’re a vital force propelling our mission forward. As trailblazers in satellite manufacturing and aerospace innovation, we shatter boundaries daily to deliver groundbreaking solutions that power our nation’s defense and commercial missions. We are a unique, fast growing, and trusted team dedicated to swiftly and efficiently designing, building, launching, and operating state of the art satellites for advanced mission constellations. If you’re driven by purpose, inspired by challenges, and ready to leave your mark on the universe, you’ll find a home and endless opportunities for growth here. Together, let’s redefine what is possible in orbit and beyond!

Terran Orbital is seeking an experienced Director, Platforms & Mission Engineering (PME) to join our growing team. Reporting to the VP, Space & Mission Systems, the Director, Platforms and Mission Engineering will provide organizational vision and management of engineering and supporting personnel for Space Platform & Mission Engineering.  The Director, Platforms & Mission Engineering = leads the organization responsible for Space Platform Products and Mission Engineering across the portfolio. The role will provide guidance and management of strong systems thinking, product definition, productization, and ensure the necessary and pertinent processes are performed throughout business acquisition and product development phases. This includes mission engineering, system architecture & analysis, product baselines, requirements management, system performance modeling and analysis, systems design integration & test, system verification and validation, specialty, systems safety, and system sustainment.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

  • Liaison with Program Management, Components and Modules Group (CMG), Assembly, Integration & Test (AIT), DFX.
  • Support engineering department operations.  
  • Collaboration with Business Development, identify IRAD needs and priorities. 
  • Product Baseline architecture, design integration, and systems engineering definitions.  
  • Provide ownership for the people, processes, and tools that support business captures, support product definition engineering activities, including managing, and integrating personnel recruiting, employee development, employee engagement, skills development, staffing, process, and support product development. 
  • Provide support for new business development, implementation of systems engineering process, technical risk & opportunity management, and lessons learned from ground operations, test, and on-orbit evaluation.  
  • Orchestrate systems engineering on new business activities, establishing product organizational structures, building high performance teams, managing system development, owning and developing technical product baselines, managing product baseline change, owning and executing technical product reviews, and measuring execution through system delivery, system operations, and system retirement. 
  • Oversee technical aspect of reviews, responsible for productization, process improvement plans, proposal review, and commitment authority for scope of work. 
  • Ensure application of sound Engineering processes with tailoring as defined by Mission Class, Mission Area, Business direction, and customer contractual direction. 
  • Responsible for participation in internal and external audits, as well as Engineering corrective action or Review boards. 
  • Responsible for advising on strategic roadmaps for existing and proposed product lines with guidance on their applicability, capabilities, and risk posture. 
  • Capable of personally contributing on a technical level to ensure quality, efficient, and thorough engineering throughout the product lifecycle. 
  • Participate, lead, and create a culture that supports technical discussions with internal stakeholders, customers, and suppliers to ensure product and mission success.
  • Manage mission, system, and product level trade studies to balance risk, cost, and performance with respect to market demands. 
  • Ensure engineering artifacts that support requirements and architecture development; modeling and simulation; cybersecurity; network operations; interoperability; verification and validation testing; and enterprise deployment and capability monitoring. 
  • Establish standard operating procedures that support mission assurance, risk mitigation, and contingency plans to assure required mission “up time” for all ground activities. 
  • Collaborate with engineering teams to define interfaces; integrate mission applications and data storage; and verify Terran Orbital enterprise capabilities. 
  • Implement life cycle engineering best practices. 

Qualifications and Skills

  • Bachelor’s degree in engineering, physics, or related field. 
  • 10 years or more of experience in engineering development.
  • 5+ years of technical leadership experience in the space domain. 
  • Experience with risk, issue, and opportunity management. 
  • Demonstrated ability to make complex critical decisions in a timely manner.
  • Experience leading operations on complex programs or large functional organizations, with proven collaboration and coordination skills across internal and external stakeholder organizations. 
  • Understanding of how people, process, tools, systems, and leadership operate to achieve goals. 
  • Proven ability to deliver effective communication verbally, written, and through well-crafted presentations across all levels of an organization. 
  • Impeccable attention to detail and sense of urgency. 
  • Ability to self-govern with minimal supervision, establish workload priorities, and to utilize efficient time management practices to achieve assigned tasks. 
  • U.S. citizenship with eligibility to obtain and maintain DoD security clearance.

Additional Differentiators

  • Masters or Doctorate in a relevant field
  • Demonstrated experience and success with technical leadership of launched or operational space domain systems and architectures.
  • Demonstrated experience and success with the development of cutting-edge space systems, mission and satellite astrodynamics, including satellite software, mission-critical applications.
  • Familiarity with satellite system budgets including mass, power, and link budgets.

Your actual level and base salary will be determined case-by-case and may vary based on the job-related qualification, knowledge, skills, education, and experience. In addition to base salary, we offer 100% covered medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k) match, Flexible Time Off (FTO), covered life insurance, maternity and paternity leave, tuition reimbursement, employee referrals, and lots of swag! 

Salary Range

$185,000 - $285,000 USD

 Benefits

  • 100% Company-paid comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents
  • 401(k) Match
  • Flexible Time Off (FTO)
  • Education Reimbursement
  • Competitive Paid Parental Leave

About Terran Orbital 

Terran Orbital is a leading manufacturer of satellite products primarily serving the aerospace and defense industries. Terran Orbital provides end-to-end satellite solutions by combining satellite design, production, launch planning, mission operations, and on-orbit support to meet the needs of the most demanding military, civil, and commercial customers. Learn more at www.terranorbital.com

Physical Demands

An employee must meet the physical demands described to perform the essential functions of this job successfully. In performing the duties of this job, the employee is routinely required to sit or stand for long durations of time, in addition to bending, reaching, and walking. This would require the ability to lift or move objects up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift or move objects up to 25 pounds. This position is generally sedentary, with substantial computer usage.

Work Environment

The job operates in a professional office environment but in a manufacturing company. This job routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, and scanners.

Disclaimers

To comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations, the applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. In addition, please note that this position may require a current United States National Security clearance or eligibility for such a clearance.

Terran Orbital is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. We consider applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or membership in any other group protected by federal, state, or local law.

If you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at hr@terranorbital.com.

Terran Orbital does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters, employment agencies, or staffing firms. To conduct business with Terran Orbital, a Master Services Agreement (MSA) must be executed and confirmed prior to submitting any information relating to a potential candidate. Without a signed MSA, Terran Orbital shall not be responsible to any individual or entity for any payment relating to any form of fee or compensation.

And, in the event that a resume or candidate is submitted by a recruiter, an employment agency, or a staffing firm without a fully executed MSA, Terran Orbital has the unrestricted right to pursue and hire any of those candidate(s) without any legal or financial responsibility to the recruiter, agency, and/or firm. 

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