Spacecraft System Architect Lead

Stoke Space • Kent, WA

19d • $151,305 - $393,435

About The Position

Stoke is building Nova, a fully and rapidly reusable launch vehicle, and has formed a new organization to develop products on a 3–10 year horizon beyond launch. The organization focuses on spacecraft and on-orbit mobility, downmass returning cargo to Earth, and satellites, platforms, and factories that put mass to work in space. It is small by design, with team members taking on multiple roles.

As Spacecraft System Architect Lead, you will be a founding technical member of the team. You will translate customer input and business goals into conceptual system architectures, concepts of operations, system requirements, and product breakdowns, and carry the architecture through detailed design, build, test, flight, and on-orbit operations. You will make and own early cross-disciplinary trades with limited information, decide what to build, buy, or obtain through partners, and help grow the team. Integrated test and flight experience will inform subsequent architectures. The role calls for a self-directed person who can stay focused, move quickly, and learn on the fly.

You will also act as program lead for schedule, budget, and risk through first flight, and serve as the technical face of the product with customers and partners alongside Stoke’s business development team.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in aerospace, mechanical, or electrical engineering, physics, or a related field.
• 10+ years of spacecraft or launch vehicle engineering experience, including at least one spacecraft carried from concept through on-orbit operations.
• Experience as a chief engineer, system architect, vehicle lead, or in an equivalent accountable technical role on a spacecraft or stage.
• Exceptional command of fundamentals in one or more of structures, propulsion, thermal, power, GNC, avionics, or software, and ability to apply first-order analysis across all of them.
• Demonstrated ability to make rapid, well-reasoned architectural decisions across disciplines with incomplete information.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to lead and to follow.
• Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S. (current Green Card holder), or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), to comply with ITAR requirements.

Nice To Haves

• Flight heritage on a long-duration spacecraft (GEO, MEO, cislunar, or multi-year LEO) where thermal, power, radiation, and propellant management over the mission life drove the design.
• Experience with atmospheric reentry, aerobraking, or other atmospheric flight phases of a space vehicle.
• Exposure to high-delta-v maneuvering, rendezvous and proximity operations, or refueling.
• Experience shipping flight hardware on a startup timeline at a company or on a team where you made the architectural trades rather than inheriting them.
• Production-rate or constellation bus experience, including cost-per-unit and factory mindset, in addition to bespoke performance.
• Experience with national-security space customers and the demonstration-to-program path.
• Experience with storable or green chemical propulsion, electric propulsion, or refueling interfaces.
• Experience leading or managing engineering teams.
• Master’s degree or PhD in aerospace engineering or a related field.

Responsibilities

• Translate customer and business objectives into system concepts, concepts of operations, functional capabilities, and system requirements for the group’s products.
• Develop the product breakdown and perform first-order analysis across disciplines to size the system and estimate mass, power, cost, and performance with incomplete information.
• Make early cross-disciplinary trades across propulsion, GNC, power, thermal, structures, avionics, software, and ground systems, and carry them through architecture and design reviews.
• Establish design margins, reliability targets, and an incremental development path from first demonstration to production.
• Define interfaces to Nova and customer systems; select and manage external partners for major subsystems, owning requirements, interface control, and acceptance.
• Support the full product lifecycle, including detailed design, integration, test, launch, and on-orbit operations, and feed lessons learned into the next architecture.
• Represent the product technically with customers and partners alongside Stoke’s business development team.
• Lead program schedule, budget, and risk through first flight.
• Help grow the engineering team as the product matures.

Benefits

• Equity in the form of stock options for regular, full-time employees.
• Comprehensive benefits program including subsidized medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Company-paid life and disability insurance.
• 401(k) plan with employer match.
• 4 weeks’ paid time off.
• 10 holidays, including an end-of-year closure.
• Paid family/parental leave.
• On-site gym or monthly wellness stipend, depending on location.
• Dog-friendly offices.

What This Job Offers

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