Senior Instrument Systems Engineer at Muon Space
Mountain View or San Jose, CA
$184,000–$223,000from the description
Jul 5, 2026
Mountain View or San Jose, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior systems engineering role focused on infrared remote sensing instruments for national security satellite missions, spanning the full development lifecycle from concept through on-orbit operations. Day-to-day work involves leading architecture trades, maintaining technical budgets, writing interface control documents, and supporting hardware integration and test. Participation in a monthly on-call rotation for on-orbit anomaly resolution is required.
Senior level · 5+ years · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · TS/SCI clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $188,486 (middle half $139,113–$224,920). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
This role is a spacecraft/satellite Instrument Systems Engineer — a hardware-centric, multi-disciplinary engineering position focused on infrared electro-optical remote sensing instruments. It does not map cleanly to any standard computer/mathematical SOC; 15-1299 (Computer Occupations, All Other) is used as the closest available code, though 15-1211 (Computer Systems Analysts) is a plausible alternative given the systems-engineering and requirements-decomposition emphasis. Neither is a strong fit for what is fundamentally an aerospace/optical systems engineering role.
The JD states 'Ability to obtain TS/SCI security clearance required, active clearance strongly preferred.' The hard gate is the ability to obtain TS/SCI; an active clearance is preferred but not strictly required to apply.
Software proficiency (Python or Julia) is listed in the required qualifications section with an 'e.g.' qualifier, indicating one of these languages is required but the specific choice is flexible.
The role is hybrid (3 days/week on-site in Mountain View or San Jose, CA) — not fully remote.
STOP analysis, precision optical/mechanical metrology, environmental testing (TVAC, vibration), and cleanroom experience are all listed under the explicit 'Nice-to-have Skills' section.
The degree requirement accepts B.S., M.S., Ph.D., or equivalent experience, so no minimum formal degree is hard-gated.
The role includes a 24/7 on-call rotation (~1 week/month) for on-orbit anomaly resolution — an unusual operational commitment worth flagging for candidates.
Ignored 3 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): data analysis, STOP analysis, cleanroom operations.
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.
Read the full posting
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