Engineering Manager, Avionics

Muon seeks an Engineering Manager to lead the team that designs the core avionics at the heart of every Muon spacecraft - flight computers, power systems and batteries, ADCS controller, and related electronics. Unlike our mission-facing teams, this team is design-focused: architecting, designing, qualifying, and evolving the avionics products that are reused across our satellite platforms and missions.

This is a hands-on management role for a leader with an extensive electrical design background: you'll manage and grow the team while staying deeply engaged technically - driving architecture, reviewing schematics and layouts, and setting the design quality bar.

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

• Lead, mentor, and grow the avionics design team along with planning resourcing across concurrent development efforts and hire as the team scales

• Own delivery of Muon's core avionics - flight computers, power systems and batteries, ADCS controllers, and related electronics - from architecture through design, qualification, and production support

• Drive the avionics roadmap: improve performance, reliability, cost, and manufacturability, and maximize standardization and reuse across satellite platforms

• Stay hands-on: contribute to architecture definition, review schematics and layouts, and support bring-up and debug alongside the team

• Set and uphold electrical design standards — design reviews, derating and worst-case analysis, documentation, and ECO/DCO discipline

• Own avionics qualification and test strategies, partnering with Hardware Reliability & Test to ensure consistent qualification across products

• Partner with embedded software, mechanical, thermal, systems, and production teams to ensure successful hardware/software integration and manufacturability

• Invest in developing engineers through coaching, design feedback, and growth planning

• 8+ years of experience designing complex, high-reliability electronics that operate in harsh environments (spacecraft, aviation, automotive, robotics, or similar)

• 2+ years managing or technically leading engineering teams

• Extensive hands-on electrical design experience: architecture, schematic capture, PCB layout, and board bring-up for complex mixed-signal systems

• Deep understanding across avionics domains: embedded processing, power conversion and distribution, battery systems, and control electronics

• Experience taking boards from concept through qualification and production

• Strong grasp of hardware/software integration: microcontrollers and common interfaces (UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, Ethernet)

• Excellent leadership, communication, and presentation skills; ability to move fluidly between team leadership and hands-on engineering

• B.S. or higher in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field

Nice-to-have Skills

• Flight heritage — avionics you designed that has successfully operated in space

• Experience designing radiation-tolerant electronics using COTS components

• Experience with power electronics for space applications (batteries, switching converters, load switches)

• Experience with FPGAs, SoCs, or embedded Linux platforms

• EMI/EMC design and test experience

• Test automation and data analysis using Python or similar

The salary range for this role is $186,000 - $202,000, plus a competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic