Senior Director, EO/IR Instrument Engineering

Muon Space•Mountain View, CA

6d•$256,000 - $293,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Muon Space seeks a Senior Director of EO/IR Instrument Engineering to lead the strategy, development, and delivery of its electro-optical and infrared instrument portfolio, from system architecture through on-orbit calibration. The role leads a multidisciplinary engineering organization that is roughly doubling in size and establishes the technical direction and operational rigor needed to scale across a growing portfolio of flight programs. The senior technical and organizational leader owns instrument performance, cost, schedule, and business outcomes, aligning engineering execution with mission objectives. Reporting to the SVP of Mission Execution, the position serves on the Mission Execution leadership team and helps shape Muon’s EO/IR strategy, organizational capabilities, and instrument portfolio execution. The position is hybrid and requires working onsite at Muon’s Mountain View, California office three days per week. It requires access to export-controlled information, subject to applicable U.S. government export regulations. Muon Space, founded in 2021, is an end-to-end space systems provider that designs, builds, and operates low Earth orbit satellite constellations. Its integrated technology stack supports mission-critical data and remote sensing, with a facility designed for spacecraft manufacturing and flexible payload integration. Its work spans areas including climate monitoring and national security.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in physics, optical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related field.
20+ years developing EO/IR imaging instruments, including at least 10 years leading engineering organizations.
Technical leadership of at least two spaceflight EO/IR instruments from concept through launch and on-orbit checkout.
Experience leading an organization of 40+ people through multiple management layers, with budget accountability.
Working command of the full instrument chain: optical design, focal plane arrays and readout electronics, thermal and cryogenic design, radiometric calibration, and on-orbit performance.
A record of owning instrument cost and schedule commitments and representing an instrument or payload portfolio to customers and senior executives.
Ability to work onsite at Bay Area facilities.
Must meet the applicable U.S. person or export-control eligibility requirements for access to export-controlled information.

Nice To Haves

MS or PhD in optics, physics, or electrical engineering.
MWIR/LWIR instrument experience, including cooled focal planes such as HgCdTe, InSb, or T2SL, and cryocooler integration.
Delivery of multiple units of the same instrument design, ideally at constellation scale.
Small satellite or commercial space experience where cost and cycle time drove architecture.
Earth observation, wildfire, weather, or national security EO/IR mission background.
Active security clearance or eligibility to obtain one.
Prior VP or director-of-directors role, with experience building an organization through rapid growth, including hiring and developing first-time managers.

Responsibilities

Set the company’s EO/IR strategy and define, with the executive team and Growth, which EO/IR missions and markets Muon pursues.
Own the multi-year investment plan for instrument technology, laboratory and test infrastructure, and the organization’s operating budget.
Represent Muon’s EO/IR capabilities to customers, partners, and the national security community at the executive level.
Own EO/IR instrument performance, cost, and schedule on every program Muon flies.
Provide credible instrument estimates to program management and proposal teams, and deliver against them.
Run portfolio technical reviews covering requirements, PDR/CDR, test readiness, pre-ship, and on-orbit performance.
Work with the Product Team to define the EO/IR instrument roadmap, including reusable architectures, common focal plane and electronics building blocks, and make/buy strategy for optics, detectors, and cryocoolers.
Hold final technical authority for radiometric performance budgets, calibration approach, and contamination control.
Drive design for manufacture so instruments can be built at constellation rates.
Hire approximately 20 engineers and managers over the next year while maintaining a high hiring bar.
Develop reporting managers and establish career paths for senior individual contributors.
Establish the processes, laboratory capability, and test infrastructure needed for the organization to scale.
Partner with Mission Systems on mission requirements and end-to-end performance, and with Production and Supply Chain on the transition from development to rate production.
Represent EO/IR instruments to customers, in proposals, and at the Mission Execution leadership table.