Senior Instrument Scientist - Calibration

Muon Space•Mountain View, CA

8d•Onsite

About The Position

Muon seeks a Senior Instrument Scientist to join our team in Mountain View, CA with a focus on calibration of infrared remote sensing instruments. The ideal candidate is a self-motivated engineer or scientist with a versatile skill set who is comfortable working across many layers of technical depth. This role will be a key member of the instrument team, establishing scalable calibration hardware infrastructure and processes to ensure delivery of science-grade radiometric and geometric calibration artifacts to the data team. Previous experience developing and operating infrared electro-optical systems, remote sensing instruments, and test infrastructure in fast-paced and small-team environments is preferred.

Requirements

B.S, M.S., or Ph.D. in an engineering field, or equivalent experience.
5+ years of experience working in a multi-disciplinary environment, with demonstrated experience with imaging systems and infrared remote sensing instruments.
Software skills in one or more languages (e.g. Python, Julia, C++).
Experience working hands-on with precision optical equipment for instrument characterization and calibration.
Experience with root cause analysis efforts including data analysis and testing.
Experience performing data analysis, post-processing, and test report generation.
Excellent communication, presentation, and organization skills.
Excited to work in a fast-paced environment with new challenges each week.
Must be a U.S. person (U.S. citizen or national, U.S. lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee) or eligible to access export controlled information without authorization, or eligible and likely to obtain required export authorization.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting business development including technical contributions to proposals.
Experience translating mission and science requirements into technical requirements.
Experience developing instrument concept of operations (ConOps).
Experience working in cleanroom environments.
Experience supporting environmental testing (thermal stress screening, TVAC, random vibration), integrated spacecraft testing, and launch campaigns.

Responsibilities

Own radiometric and geometric calibration standards across multiple instrument programs, developing best practices and ensuring adherence to defined processes.
Lead the design and development of scalable calibration test hardware infrastructure.
Lead the planning and execution of pre-launch radiometric and geometric calibration campaigns to establish baseline sensor performance models.
Support definition and tracking of metrics to monitor the performance of instruments from ground to orbit.
Collaborate and communicate effectively with instrument and spacecraft systems engineers, data scientists, mission operations engineers, and program managers.
Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation to support on-orbit anomaly resolution (approximately one week per month).