York Space Systems was founded to radically improve spacecraft affordability and reliability, transforming, and enabling next- generation space mission operations worldwide. Today, York is one of the most innovative aerospace companies, specializing in end-to-end customer solutions and the rapid production of spacecraft platforms. York's complete Space Segment Solution includes spacecraft production, payload integration, system integration & test, launch services, ground segment services, and mission operations, enabling customers to leverage York's existing technology solutions to get to orbit rapidly and responsively. We're looking to expand our team across the board.
We are seeking a Senior or Principal Electrical Systems Engineer to lead the development of next-generation spacecraft power architectures.
This role will support major changes to our vehicle electrical power system, including increased bus voltages above 100 VDC, higher-power payloads, new power distribution architectures, and more demanding mission environments. The engineer will be responsible for turning broad mission needs into practical, testable, flight-ready electrical systems.
This is not a component-selection or requirements-tracking position. The successful candidate will be expected to understand how high-power switching DC systems behave, identify where the architecture will fail, and lead the technical work required to make it reliable.
The work will involve incomplete information, difficult trades, aggressive schedules, and decisions with consequences that may not become visible until integration, test, or flight. Candidates should be comfortable operating in that environment and taking direct ownership of results.
This role will be fully on-site in our Greenwood Village office.
Key Responsibilities- Lead the architecture, design, integration, and verification of spacecraft electrical power systems.
- Develop power system architectures supporting bus voltages of 100 VDC and above.
- Apply switching DC power system expertise to spacecraft power generation, storage, conversion, distribution, protection, and load management.
- Define system-level requirements for power quality, stability, grounding, fault protection, isolation, efficiency, transient response, and electrical compatibility.
- Own architecture trades involving voltage level, topology, redundancy, fault containment, conversion stages, harnessing, mass, thermal performance, and mission reliability.
- Establish electrical interface requirements between power generation, batteries, power electronics, avionics, propulsion, payloads, and external mission hardware.
- Lead the technical evaluation and selection of converters, switches, relays, contactors, solid-state power controllers, protection devices, magnetics, capacitors, connectors, and other power system hardware.
- Work directly with internal design teams and suppliers to resolve design, manufacturing, qualification, and test issues.
- Review schematics, electrical designs, analysis, test plans, test data, and failure investigations.
- Define verification strategies for power system requirements and ensure test programs meaningfully exercise expected and off-nominal operating conditions.
- Support hardware bring-up, vehicle integration, environmental test, launch-site operations, commissioning, and on-orbit anomaly resolution.
- Identify technical risks early and drive them to closure through analysis, test, redesign, or operational controls.
- Serve as a technical authority for spacecraft power system decisions.
- Mentor engineers and raise the technical standard of the broader electrical and systems engineering organization.
- Communicate design status, risks, and recommendations clearly to engineering leadership and program management.
Qualifications Required for the Role- Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or a closely related technical field.
- Significant professional experience designing, integrating, or analyzing switching DC power systems.
- Demonstrated experience with high-voltage DC power conversion or distribution systems.
- Strong understanding of DC-DC converters, switching regulators, power semiconductors, control loops, filters, magnetics, protection circuits, and power distribution.
- Experience developing electrical architectures from system-level mission needs.
- Experience evaluating transient behavior, fault response, stability, efficiency, and power quality.
- Experience taking hardware through design, integration, test, and failure resolution.
- Ability to review and challenge electrical designs at the schematic, subsystem, and vehicle architecture levels.
- Ability to independently solve poorly defined technical problems.
- Ability to communicate complex electrical behavior to engineers from other disciplines.
- Willingness to work directly with hardware and support critical integration and test activities when required.
- Willingness to work full-time in our Greenwood Village, CO office; this position does not support remote or hybrid work.
Preferred for the Role- Master's degree in electrical engineering, power electronics, or a related field.
- Experience with spacecraft electrical power systems.
- Experience with power architectures operating above 100 VDC.
- Experience with solar arrays, battery systems, battery management systems, peak-power tracking, or regulated and unregulated spacecraft buses.
- Experience with silicon carbide power devices.
- Experience with solid-state power controllers, electronic circuit breakers, or high-voltage load switching.
- Experience designing for vacuum, radiation, charging, plasma, and extreme thermal environments.
- Experience with electric propulsion power interfaces.
- Experience with high-power payloads, directed energy, communications payloads, radar, or other pulsed and dynamic loads.
- Knowledge of spacecraft grounding, bonding, electromagnetic compatibility, and electrostatic discharge.
- Experience with failure modes and effects analysis, fault-tree analysis, worst-case circuit analysis, derating, and reliability analysis.
- Experience developing qualification and acceptance test programs.
- Experience investigating complex electrical failures that cross hardware, software, controls, and operations boundaries.
- Familiarity with SPICE, MATLAB, Simulink, Python, or comparable electrical modeling and analysis tools.
- Experience leading technical teams or serving as a design authority.
Senior-Level Expectations- Senior engineers are expected to independently own major portions of the power system architecture, lead detailed technical trades, resolve integration issues, and guide less-experienced engineers through difficult design and test problems.
Principal-Level Expectations- Principal engineers are expected to define the technical direction of the spacecraft power system, make architecture-level decisions across multiple programs, identify risks before they become program failures, and establish the methods, standards, and design practices used by the broader organization.
- Principal engineers must be capable of moving between first-principles analysis, detailed hardware behavior, system architecture, supplier execution, and executive-level technical communication.
What Success Looks Like- The vehicle power architecture supports current and future missions without requiring repeated redesign.
- Power system behavior is understood before hardware reaches vehicle integration.
- Electrical faults are detected, isolated, and contained without creating mission-ending cascades.
- Interfaces are clear enough that hardware from different teams and suppliers works together the first time.
- Verification demonstrates actual system performance rather than simply completing required test steps.
- Technical risks are surfaced early, communicated directly, and resolved with evidence.
- Engineers across the company make better power system decisions because of the technical foundation established in this role.
Working Environment- This role is intended for an engineer who wants to materially change how spacecraft power systems are designed and delivered.
- The organization moves quickly, and the work will not always arrive as a cleanly bounded engineering problem. Requirements may be incomplete. Interfaces may change. Hardware may expose assumptions that were wrong. Programs may require decisions before every uncertainty has been eliminated.
- The expectation is not that the engineer avoids these conditions. The expectation is that the engineer brings order to them.
- This position will require sustained technical ownership, direct engagement with difficult problems, and a willingness to remain accountable through design, build, test, and flight. Engineers who require mature processes, narrow responsibilities, or separation from hardware execution are unlikely to succeed in this role.
- Engineers who want to build systems that have not been built here before will have substantial influence over the future of the company's spacecraft architecture.
In compliance with local law, we are disclosing the compensation, or a range thereof, for roles in locations where legally required. Actual salaries will vary based on several factors, including but not limited to external market data, internal equity, location, skill set, experience, and/or performance.
Benefits- 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance (subject to spousal surcharge).
- Company holidays, floating holidays, and sick time.
- Unlimited PTO.
- Generous 401(k) match.
How To ApplyInterested candidates are encouraged to apply by clicking the "Apply" link at the top of the page. York Space Systems will be accepting applications on a rolling basis until the position is closed. York Space Systems provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, military or protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. Must have permanent authorization to work in the United States. This policy applies to all terms and conditions or employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. YORK SPACE SYSTEMS IS AN EEO EMPLOYER.
Never miss an opportunity! Create an alert based on the job you applied for.
