Staff Spacecraft Systems Engineer at Turion Space
Irvine, CA
$190,000–$260,000
Jul 15, 2026
Irvine, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior technical leadership role in which the engineer serves as Chief Program Engineer for a new line of small, agile GEO satellites supporting Space Domain Awareness missions. Day-to-day work centers on owning the full satellite architecture and technical baseline — including system-level budgets, requirements traceability, interface documentation, and verification planning — while guiding cross-disciplinary teams through formal design milestones and acting as the primary technical contact for customers and suppliers. Best suited to someone with extensive end-to-end spacecraft program experience and a background in government or defense space programs.
Staff level · 12+ years · Remote · Bachelor's required · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
Pay in the description: $190,000–$260,000
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
Why we read it this way (10)
This role is Spacecraft/Aerospace Systems Engineering — not a standard computer/mathematical occupation. No SOC code in the allowed list cleanly covers it; 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other) is used as the closest available code, with 15-1211 (Computer Systems Analysts) as the runner-up for its systems-analysis and requirements-traceability work. Candidate pool benchmarks from either code will be imprecise for this domain.
Clearance requirement: the JD states 'Must be able to obtain a Secret and/or TS/SCI clearance.' Because TS/SCI is explicitly named as a possibility the candidate must be able to obtain, clearance is set to TopSecretSci.
The role is titled 'Staff Spacecraft Systems Engineer' and the seniority band is supported by the scope (Chief Program Engineer, org-wide technical authority across full program lifecycle, mentoring senior engineers), consistent with Staff-level classification.
Preferred qualifications call for 15+ years of experience; the hard minimum stated under Minimum Qualifications is 12+ years, which is used for the overall years minimum.
Several preferred-section tools (Cameo/Capella/Innoslate for MBSE; Python/MATLAB/STK/GMAT/FreeFlyer for satellite analysis; Jama/DOORS/Flow for requirements management) are listed under 'Preferred Qualifications' and are marked accordingly.
Remote=true is set per caller declaration; no metro is inferred.
ITAR citizenship/residency restrictions apply — candidates must be US persons as defined by export control regulations.
Ignored 4 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): spacecraft systems engineering, satellite design and integration, requirements derivation and traceability, verification and validation planning.
Requires a TS/SCI clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Caller marked this a fully-remote role — scored against the national candidate pool.
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