Principal Engineer (Starship)
Principal Engineer (Starship)
SpaceX
SpaceX is seeking a Principal Engineer for Starship to lead cross-functional architectural trades, define system requirements and verification plans, and drive hardware-centric development. The role combines program leadership, technical arbitration, and mentorship to accelerate a space-enabled future.
Qualification
- Bachelor's degree in engineering and 8+ years of professional experience
- 7+ years of experience leading teams to produce engineering products
- Master’s degree in aerospace engineering or relevant engineering discipline
- Professional experience working with launch vehicles, space vehicles, command and control systems, and/or ground/space sensor systems
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with direct experience negotiating technical deliverables or scope
- Significant experience leading cross-functional teams and working with external customers and SETA representatives
- Significant experience leading and performing quantitative system of systems architecture trades and development
- Experience working with government or commercial spacecraft entities
- Highly detail oriented, diligent, and hardworking
- Ability to work in a fast-paced, autonomously driven, and demanding start-up atmosphere
Responsibility
- Close architectural trades by leading and arbitrating interdisciplinary trades
- Responsible for reporting program status and risks at a regular cadence internally and externally
- Set a scrappy, positive, and hardware-rich culture within the team with a sense of urgency towards making us a space-faring civilization
- Hire and mentor individual contributors and people leaders within the Starship team
- Capture and distill customer mission requirements from a variety of external stakeholders into actionable development objectives and verification plans
- Develop system requirements and interface control documents based on trade study results
- Lead reviews with customers and ensure that technical contract deliverables are delivered on time and per the customer’s expectations
