VP Networking, TeraWave

Blue Origin • Bay Area, CA

2d

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 TeraWave, a satellite communications network designed to deliver symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth. This network will service tens of thousands of enterprise, data center, and government users who require reliable connectivity for critical operations. This role is part of TeraWave, a satellite communications network designed to deliver symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth. This network will service tens of thousands of enterprise, data center, and government users who require reliable connectivity for critical operations. We are a mission-driven team of collaborators, doers, and problem-solvers relentlessly committed to a culture of safety and operational excellence. As part of a passionate and accomplished team of engineers, you will directly impact the future of space flight and help us make progress towards our mission of building advanced optical communications for space. Join us in advancing our vision of revolutionizing space-based communications to benefit Earth! We are building TeraWave's executive leadership team and looking for a VP of Networking to lead the network architecture, control planes, and ground systems that transform our 5,408-satellite constellation from a bent-pipe relay into a global, enterprise-ready network. Your team will design and optimize the routing infrastructure—spanning on-orbit routing across optical crosslinks and RF fallbacks, ground segment integration with carrier networks and cloud providers, and customer-facing APIs for provisioning and traffic management—that delivers carrier-grade service reliability. This leader will be responsible for end-to-end system latency (space + ground), network routing efficiency, and customer service operations. Your early leadership is critical to ensure that payload and terminal decisions align with carrier-grade networking requirements and long-term service reliability across enterprise, data center, and government markets worldwide.

Requirements

• 15+ years engineering experience with large-scale network architecture, routing protocols, and distributed systems
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical discipline
• Experience leading organizations through rapid scaling from R&D through production operations
• Experience managing 100+ person technical organizations across software, network engineering, and operations disciplines
• Prior experience building and operating Network Operations Centers for high reliability services
• Strong systems engineering fundamentals with ability to manage complex network-payload-spacecraft interfaces
• Experience with SDN (Software-Defined Networking), traffic engineering, and QoS frameworks
• Demonstrated ability to balance latency/throughput/reliability/cost tradeoffs in network systems
• Experience with network security architecture and operations

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree or PhD in related engineering field
• Experience with satellite network architectures or space-based communications systems
• Proven track record of carrier-grade network operations and SLA management
• Experience with cloud provider interconnection and internet peering architectures
• Background in AI/ML-driven network automation and predictive operations
• Familiarity with OSS/BSS systems for telecommunications
• Experience with constellation management software and dynamic routing optimization
• Knowledge of cybersecurity frameworks, threat detection, and incident response
• Experience in enterprise, data center, telecommunications, or government/defense networking markets
• Background with API design and customer-facing provisioning systems

Responsibilities

• Designing ground network architecture including gateway placement strategies, routing protocol selection, and traffic engineering frameworks.
• Develop the control plane and orchestration software that manages routing across the constellation, optimizes traffic flows, and ensures quality of service (QoS) delivery.
• Architect on-orbit routing capabilities leveraging optical inter-satellite links and RF fallback mechanisms to maximize throughput and minimize latency.
• Establish ground segment integration with terrestrial carrier networks and cloud providers, building the interconnection fabric that extends TeraWave's reach into global internet infrastructure.
• Own the Network Operations Center (NOC), which maintains customer-facing service operations including traffic routing, QoS management, SLA monitoring, and service provisioning.
• Receive payload waveform capabilities from the Payload team and define network software requirements for payload processors to enable routing and traffic management.
• Work with the Spacecraft team to receive spacecraft capabilities (data rates, latency, availability) and provide constellation management requirements.
• Partner with the Product team to translate customer SLAs into network performance requirements including routing efficiency and failover times.
• Scale strategically with talent evolving from initial SDN architects and secure routing engineers to cloud integration specialists, OSS/BSS developers, and AI-driven networking teams.
• Build NOC automation and AI Ops capabilities to manage network complexity at constellation scale, implementing predictive analytics, automated remediation, and intelligent traffic optimization.
• Manage system-level cybersecurity across the network stack, establishing security architectures, threat monitoring systems, and incident response protocols that protect customer data and network integrity.
• Manage NRE budgets across network development programs, driving operational efficiency through automation and AI Ops, and optimizing network economics through topology optimization and capacity planning.
• Balance performance, reliability, security, and cost tradeoffs to deliver network infrastructure that meets constellation deployment schedules while ensuring carrier-grade service quality.

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.
• Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.
• Dependent on role type and job level, employees may be eligible for benefits and bonuses based on the company's intent to reward individual contributions and enable them to share in the company's results, or other factors at the company's sole discretion.

What This Job Offers

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