Senior Director, EO/IR Instrument Engineering

The posting, as Muon Space wrote it

About the role

Muon seeks a Senior Director of EO/IR Instrument Engineering to lead the strategy, development, and delivery of our electro-optical and infrared instrument portfolio, from system architecture through on-orbit calibration. In this role, you will build, mentor, and guide a multidisciplinary engineering organization that is roughly doubling in size, while establishing the technical direction and operational rigor needed to scale across a growing portfolio of flight programs. As a senior technical and organizational leader, you will own instrument performance, cost, schedule, and overall business outcomes, ensuring alignment between engineering execution and mission objectives. Reporting to the SVP of Mission Execution, you will serve on the Mission Execution leadership team, shaping Muon’s EO/IR strategy, developing organizational capabilities, and driving the successful execution of our instrument portfolio.

This position is hybrid and requires working on-site in our Mountain View, CA office three days per week.

Responsibilities

• Set EO/IR strategy for the company
• Define which EO/IR missions and markets Muon pursues, in partnership with the executive team and Growth.
• Own the multi-year investment plan for instrument technology, lab and test infrastructure, and the organization's operating budget.
• Represent Muon's EO/IR capability to customers, partners and the national security community at the executive level.
• Own instrument delivery
• Be the single accountable owner for EO/IR instrument performance, cost and schedule on every program Muon flies.
• Commit credible instrument estimates to program management and proposal teams, then deliver against them.
• Run the technical review cadence for the portfolio: requirements, PDR/CDR, test readiness, pre-ship and on-orbit performance reviews.
• Set the technical direction
• Work with the Product Team to define Muon's EO/IR instrument roadmap: reusable architectures, common focal plane and electronics building blocks, and the make/buy strategy for optics, detectors and cryocoolers.
• Hold final technical authority on radiometric performance budgets (SNR, NEdT, MTF, stray light, geolocation), calibration approach and contamination control.
• Drive design-for-manufacture so instruments can be built at constellation rates, not as one-offs.
• Build the organization
• Hire roughly 20 engineers and managers over the next year while keeping the hiring bar high.
• Develop the managers who report to you and create clear career paths for senior individual contributors.
• Stand up the processes, lab capability and test infrastructure the team needs to scale.
• Lead across Muon
• 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.

Qualifications
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aking Care of Our Team

At Muon salary is only part of our total compensation package. In addition to salary, full-time employees receive equity compensation as well as benefits including medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401k retirement plan, short & long term disability and life insurance. We also offer three weeks paid vacation for new employees, along with 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time and paid parental leave.

Our mission embraces the entire planet and we believe our team should too. Muon is dedicated to creating a diverse and dynamic company and workforce. We believe in equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, age, national origin, citizenship, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or gender identity. We value diversity in the workplace, and that starts with our applicants. We encourage you to apply, even if you don't check all the boxes, and we look forward to reviewing your application! In addition, if you need a reasonable accommodation as part of your application for employment or interviews with us, please let us know.

Muon is currently registered and able to hire in the following states:
AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, IA, ID, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA

ITAR/EAR Requirements

This position requires access to export controlled information. To conform to U.S. Government export regulations applicable to that information, applicant must either be (A) a U.S. person, defined as a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (green card holder), (iii) refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, (B) eligible to access the export controlled information without a required export authorization, or (C) eligible and reasonably likely to obtain the required export authorization from the applicable U.S. government agency. The Company may, for legitimate business reasons, decline to pursue any export licensing process.