Chief Engineer, Space Based Interceptor

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

We are looking for a Chief Engineer to drive our Space Based Interceptor program and to join our rapidly growing team in Costa Mesa, CA. In this role, you will be responsible for serving as a technical lead on a wide berth of emerging developments geared towards an all-encompassing space based interceptor design in support of the Golden Dome initiatives. This will include driving technology developments through design, build, test and delivery for on-orbit operations across high dV propulsion systems, optical sensor suites, closed loop guidance and navigation and systems engineering in close concert with new and legacy ground software enterprises. The Chief Engineer will develop a technical strategy and roadmap in conjunction with the Head of Engineering for Space Missions and the Growth/Strategy leads of the Space team that effectively leverages current Anduril technologies and newly developed technologies to serve the customer mission areas. This role will address pre-award demonstrations, early contract phases, and full-contract execution. The Chief Engineer, working with a multi-disciplinary engineering team, will ensure the efficient development and delivery of hardware and software solutions for the customer.

These efforts will include leading complex, integrated systems for on-orbit operations and demonstrations to include sub-contracted teammates and strategic partnerships. The chief engineer will need to facilitate effective technical development and integration that spans company-boundaries in an agile development approach in the context of a continuous integration/continuous deployment paradigm. They will need to balance development of new capabilities with the incorporation of several pre-existing Anduril or industry capabilities and need to effectively communicate the development status to internal and external stakeholders.

The Chief Engineer will be responsible for technical oversight of all aspects of program execution from proposals to SRR, PDR, CDR, MRR, TRR, assembly, qualification testing, and delivery of flight units for launch. The Chief Engineer in conjunction with the Head of Engineering for Space Missions will assist in building out the necessary infrastructure for Anduril to execute on all necessary aspects a space based interceptor consisting of satellite and payload build and test to include working with external vendors for establishing test requirements and pass/fail criteria. The Chief Engineer will also work closely with the Anduril Space C2 team to enable and deliver Space Ground C2 products to both the customer and to further Anduril’s penetration into customer ecosystems.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Provide technical expertise across multiple spacecraft subsystems and ground systems
• Leverage strategic partnerships and teammates for building out new products to satisfy customer requirements in new and challenging mission areas
• Provide space industry expertise to refine and advance the Anduril Space Based Interceptor strategy for customer engagements and demonstrations
• Contribute technical inputs to proposals to include engineering execution plans
• Provider oversight to a multi-disciplinary team of engineers through all phases of program execution up to and including delivery and operation of capabilities on-orbit
• Perform mission and system level trade studies and analysis to balance risk, cost, and performance

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience in architecting, developing, and delivering defense/IC satellite and space hardware and software systems
• Experience in the missile defense mission area through ground based interceptors or space based sensing and understand the kill chains associated with defeating adversary missile threats
• Understanding of the recent/current technical state of key USSF and IC space systems and mission areas
• Demonstrated ability to decompose complex systems with competing objectives (e.g., performance, schedule, openness, cybersecurity, MLS) into executable requirements and execution then delivering on those to meet government expectations
• Experience with spacecraft standards for qualification tes