Albedo

Director of Hardware

Broomfield, CO · Director · Full-time

Sponsorship not specified$213k-$243kDetected 77 days ago

AvionicsSystems EngineeringMechanical DesignHardware DesignResearchCommunication

About the role

How We Operate: Albedo takes a first-principles approach - in space and in business.
We move with speed, take calculated risks, and learn quickly.
We work in-person at our Broomfield CO HQ to maximize team and company productivity.

Lead the hardware engineering organization - opto-mechanical, structures, thermal, avionics - across approximately three to four teams of managers and ICs
Own design margin discipline against design standards across thermal, structural, radiation, electrical, mass, and optical budgets, and make those margins routine rather than heroic
Drive the AIT build flow from primary mirror unit fabrication through bus-to-payload integration through environmental test, eliminating the integration-stage discoveries that should have been caught analytically
Develop hardware engineering managers who can run their domains without requiring you in every technical decision
Partner with the Director of Software, Systems Engineering, and program management to close the analytical loop between hardware design, flight telemetry, and the next build
Engage directly in design reviews, anomaly investigations, and supplier technical assessments - operate in the system without becoming a bottleneck
Track record of design margin discipline against NASA, MIL, or equivalent standards, with examples where your margin calls held up under flight conditions

In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire.
Applicants must be a U.S. Person as defined under 22 CFR 120.62
Experience leading hardware through environmental test campaigns and on-orbit anomaly resolution
Real make-vs-buy decisions you have owned and can defend with cost, schedule, and capability data
Comfort holding a schedule against pressure when the analysis demands it, and yielding when the analysis says you can
Hands-on depth in opto-mechanical engineering, structural dynamics, or precision pointing systems - you have personally owned a precision payload or precision pointing chain end-to-end
Demonstrated cross-disciplinary system reasoning: you think in budgets across optics, structures, thermal, GNC, mass, and power, and you can trace budget violations to root cause

Twelve-plus years in precision spaceflight hardware, with at least four leading hardware engineering managers

Employer/Veterans/Disabled: Albedo is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Relocation: Relocation support for this position is available
#LI-Onsite
Research shows that while men apply to jobs where they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other underrepresented people tend to only apply when they meet 100% of the qualifications. At Albedo, we'd rather hear from you. We care more about how you think than which boxes you check. We value people who do the math, make their assumptions explicit, and ask the annoying questions: what breaks, what's the failure mode, what has to be true for this to work? If that sounds like you, apply, even if you don't meet every line.

This listing is sourced directly from Albedo's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.