Principle DFX Engineer

BLUE ORIGIN • Cupertino, CA

1d • $183,193 - $256,470

About The Position

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight! This role is part of Blue Origin Operations, which is comprised of Integrated Supply Chain, Test Operations, Safety, Quality, and Mission Assurance. This includes Manufacturing and Supply Chain support across all Blue Origin facilities. Blue Origin's Emerging Systems business unit is building TeraWave, a satellite communications constellation powered by the most advanced optical communications architecture ever attempted: thousands of optically interconnected satellites delivering symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth, providing enterprise and hyperscale customers with resilient, scalable connectivity for critical operations where terrestrial infrastructure cannot reach. You will own the end-to-end hardware design integration of TeraWave modules to power architecture, embedded management controllers, and high-speed PCB layout. As a foundational element of TeraWave operations, hardware must be architected not only for performance but for manufacturability, testability, reliability, and serviceability at constellation scale. This is a hands-on role for an engineer who has designed and shipped complex electronic products in fast-moving environments and wants to apply that experience to hardware operating at orbital scale.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in hardware design, power electronics, or embedded systems in a product development environment.
• Track record of designing and shipping complex electronic products through development into production.
• Experience designing multi-layer PCBs with high-speed digital interfaces and mixed-signal power distribution; proficiency in Altium, Cadence, or equivalent.
• Hands-on experience designing and integrating high-speed Ethernet switch hardware, including network processors (NPUs), SerDes interfaces, and optical or copper PHY technologies.
• Strong knowledge of power supply design (DC-DC converters, LDOs, sequencing, transient analysis) with hands-on SPICE simulation experience.
• Experience with embedded microprocessor design (ARM, RISC-V, or similar) including BSP integration and peripheral bus bring-up (I2C, SPI, UART, CAN).
• Practical EMI/EMC mitigation and signal/power integrity analysis experience.
• Demonstrated application of DFX principles (DFM/DFT/DFA/DFR) in bringing hardware from design into volume production.
• Excellent technical documentation and communication skills.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree in Electrical or Computer Engineering.
• 15+ years of relevant experience.
• Experience with radiation effects on electronics (SEE, TID, displacement damage) and mitigation techniques.
• Experience designing electronics for space, aviation, or other high-reliability thermal-vacuum environments.
• Experience with FPGA or ASIC integration in board management or data-path contexts.
• Background in production hardware including comprehensive DFX practices (DFM/DFT/DFA/DFR), supply chain coordination, and yield optimization at scale.
• Hands-on environmental qualification testing (TVAC, vibration, EMI/EMC).

Responsibilities

• Architect BMC subsystems using MPSoC, ARM, or RISC-V microprocessors to monitor line card health, thermal sensors, and voltage rails.
• Design and integrate low-level communication buses (I2C, SPI, PMBus, SMBus, RS-485, CAN) for hardware telemetry and sequencing control.
• Develop hardware watchdog circuits and redundant boot sequences for fault recovery.
• Enable in-flight firmware reprogrammability via ground link, including secure update and rollback mechanisms.
• Architect high-reliability power distribution with autonomous sequencing, redundant paths (e.g., ORing controllers), and fault isolation to eliminate single points of failure.
• Specify and integrate radiation-hardened or radiation-tolerant components rated for SEE and TID in the target orbital environment.
• Design power stages for thermal-vacuum operation, emphasizing high-efficiency topologies and conduction/radiation thermal transfer.
• Architect low-noise power trees using high-PSRR LDOs and multi-stage LC filtering to protect sensitive analog and high-speed digital lanes.
• Lead SPICE-based transient analysis and hardware validation of load step responses, switching transients, and voltage ripple to millivolt-level tolerances.
• Develop EMI/EMC mitigation strategies — grounding architecture, decoupling optimization, power/signal plane isolation — to prevent crosstalk between power distribution and high-speed data paths.
• Lead multi-layer PCB design for switch line cards: stackup definition, impedance-controlled routing, thermal management, and DFM.
• Manage CCA BOM procurement, vendor coordination, and assembly oversight.
• Integrate BSPs, SDKs, and device drivers for Ethernet switching and network processor components in collaboration with firmware and software teams.
• Architect and bring up high-performance Ethernet switching systems, including NPU/switch ASIC integration, PHY and SerDes tuning, VLAN configuration, and MAC-level validation across high-density line cards.
• Resolve complex hardware-software interface issues across L1 and L2, including physical layer bring-up, transceiver integration, and MAC-level debugging.
• Lead factory acceptance testing, physical layer validation (optical transceivers, high-density copper), and commissioning of switch hardware.
• Drive Design for Excellence (DFX) principles — DFM, DFT, DFA, DFR, and DFS — across the full switching subsystem lifecycle to ensure hardware scales from prototype through volume production for TeraWave operations.
• Design for Manufacturability (DFM): Optimize PCB stackups, component footprints, and assembly processes to maximize yield and minimize cost at constellation-scale production volumes.
• Design for Test (DFT): Architect built-in test structures, boundary scan (JTAG), test points, and automated test coverage to enable efficient factory acceptance and in-field diagnostics.
• Design for Assembly (DFA): Simplify component placement, connector selection, and mechanical integration to reduce assembly time and error rates.
• Design for Reliability (DFR): Apply derating, worst-case circuit analysis, FMEA, and reliability prediction to ensure long-duration operation in the orbital environment.
• Design for Serviceability/Supply Chain (DFS): Coordinate with supply chain and manufacturing partners to drive component standardization, second-sourcing strategies, and obsolescence mitigation across the production lifecycle.
• Partner with manufacturing, quality, and supply chain teams to define acceptance criteria, drive yield optimization, and support production ramp for sustained TeraWave operations.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
• Stock Options for all regular employees (working at least 20 hours/week)
• Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal