Senior Avionics Engineer

Senior Avionics Engineer

Location: Playa Vista, California (in-person, five days per week)

Outpost is pioneering Earth return logistics for space. We're building vehicles that can return payloads from orbit safely and precisely—enabling faster space-based manufacturing, global delivery, and entirely new capabilities in the space economy. Our spacecraft is already backed by the U.S. government with multiple missions ahead. We’re a mission-focused team, building with urgency, grit, and care for the work we do and the people we do it with.

The Team

The Avionics team is responsible for the design, testing, and production of electronic systems for Outpost’s Earth return vehicles and ground support equipment. You'll collaborate closely with engineers across multiple domains to create efficient and sustainable solutions. This position offers the chance to engage in all aspects of spacecraft development and own avionics subsystems from end to end, from architecture and requirements definition through design, test, integration, and providing support during flight and re-entry.

Responsibilities

• Develop electrical architectures, design circuits, capture schematics, and lay out PCBAs.
• Design custom electrical harnesses and oversee harness builds.
• Make build vs. buy decisions to best satisfy design, schedule, and budget requirements.
• Develop and support electrical ground equipment and test hardware, including HITL and FlatSat setups.
• Drive root-cause analysis and troubleshooting of electronics-related issues in spacecraft and ground systems.
• Interface directly with external vendors to ensure that hardware is delivered on time and with expected quality.
• Contribute to defining avionics team best practices such as documentation, design reviews, and hardware-related development processes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, physics, or related field.
• 6+ years of experience designing and building electrical hardware for high-reliability applications such as aerospace, defense, or automotive.
• Hands-on experience with electrical test equipment (e.g., multimeters, signal generators, oscilloscopes, electronic loads).

Preferred Experience

• 8+ years of relevant experience.
• Ability to write software scripts to automate hardware testing in Python or a similar language.
• Prior clean-sheet design projects in one or more of the following areas: embedded systems, power distribution, instrumentation and sensor selection, avionics, analog and mixed-signal circuits.
• Experience designing electronics which balance radiation tolerance with budgetary and schedule constraints.
• Ability to work in an autonomously driven startup environment and independently prioritize tasks.
• Experience with integrating a vehicle system and/or debugging system-level electrical issues.

Compensation & Benefits

• $115,000 - $185,000, based on experience
• Equity
• Annual Performance-Based Bonuses
• Medical, Dental and Vision
• Short- and Long-Term disability insurance
• Life Insurance
• PTO
• 401K with company match
• Subsidized daily catered lunch, snacks, coffee and tea

You must be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.15 , or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State