Top Tech Jobs & Startup Jobs in Los Angeles, CA

Provides financial and programmatic oversight for spacecraft development programs. Responsibilities include establishing budgets and cost baselines, maintaining schedules, forecasting EACs and cash flow, analyzing variances, tracking expenditures and labor, supporting EVM, preparing dashboards and executive reporting, assessing program risks and changes, and collaborating across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, finance, and program management.

Own and maintain integrated master schedules for spacecraft programs from proposal through launch. Develop Microsoft Project schedules, establish baselines, analyze critical paths and schedule risks, track variances, and lead recovery planning. Coordinate schedule inputs across engineering, manufacturing, procurement, subcontractors, suppliers, launch sites, and government customers. Prepare status reports and review materials for leadership and customer meetings, support EVM and IBR activities, and contribute schedule estimates and risk assessments for proposals.

Develop and qualify spacecraft propulsion hardware, including propellant tanks, pumps, and fluid systems. Perform design, analysis, trade studies, manufacturing support, testing, integration, anomaly investigation, and root-cause analysis across the product lifecycle. Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, support environmental testing, launch campaigns, mission readiness, technical reviews, and flight operations for national security, civil, and commercial space missions.

Develop, integrate, and support mission-critical ground software for spacecraft testing, command and telemetry, mission operations, and real-time communications. Build distributed systems, data pipelines, APIs, and operational tooling; contribute to architecture, requirements, verification, testing, CI/CD, deployment, documentation, and operational readiness. Collaborate with flight software, avionics, AI&T, systems engineering, and mission operations teams. Support on-call rotations and critical real-time mission events.

Supports spacecraft hardware build, integration, and test operations by developing inspection procedures, verifying conformity to engineering documentation, investigating nonconformances, and driving RCCA/CAPA. Performs and monitors inspections and environmental tests, ensures compliance with cleanroom, contamination, ESD, lifting, and hazardous-operation controls, maintains calibration compliance, and supports internal, customer, and government audits. Partners cross-functionally with engineering, manufacturing, and test teams to improve process quality and mission reliability.

Lead the mechanical design and development of electric propulsion hardware and related spacecraft subsystems from concept through flight. Responsibilities include CAD and drawing release, GD&T, structural and thermal analysis, propulsion integration and testing, verification planning, anomaly resolution, root cause analysis, design reviews, supplier coordination, and mentoring junior engineers. The role requires delivering flight-ready designs that meet performance, manufacturability, and reliability requirements while working onsite in the Los Angeles area.

Perform reliability and mission assurance analyses for spacecraft and supporting systems, including FMEA/FMECA, FTA, reliability predictions, physics-of-failure evaluations, parts reliability, and risk assessments. Influence spacecraft architecture, hardware design, supplier selection, redundancy, and component choices. Support environmental qualification, life testing, failure investigations, and verification activities while maintaining technical documentation. Develop reliability processes within an AS9100 Rev D quality system and collaborate across multidisciplinary engineering teams. The role requires experience with flight hardware or similarly high-reliability aerospace systems and U.S. person status.

Lead technical solution development for strategic space mission pursuits across defense, intelligence, civil, and commercial markets. Translate customer needs into mission architectures, CONOPS, technical strategies, and differentiated solutions. Conduct trade studies, assess risks, develop proposal content, support customer engagements, and guide technical strategies through capture and proposal lifecycles. Lead multidisciplinary teams while collaborating with engineering, program management, business development, executives, and government stakeholders.

Develop, integrate, debug, and test embedded flight and payload software for spacecraft running VxWorks and Linux. Collaborate with avionics, payload, propulsion, GNC, mission operations, and ground software teams to implement flight behaviors, command sequences, scheduling logic, and autonomous capabilities. Support hardware-in-the-loop testing, system integration, functional verification, and documentation in a rapid, schedule-driven environment.

Leads mechanical engineering for spacecraft platforms, owning mechanical design, integration, verification, structural configuration, payload integration, thermal control, mechanisms, and propulsion build efforts. Manages engineering staff, approves design artifacts and analyses, oversees hardware development and testing, manages interfaces and technical risks, supports procurement and vendors, and contributes to design reviews, environmental testing, spacecraft integration, and mission operations.