Flight-Ready Embedded Systems Engineer

Estes Aerospace; Vienna (VA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Estes Aerospace is seeking a hands-on engineer to turn ideas into hardware, from schematic to flight test. You will own the full stack, including circuit design, PCB layout, harness design, and the firmware that brings it to life.

This role focuses on building real hardware for flight-critical systems and requires a passion for turning concepts into working hardware that powers rockets and related systems.

Qualifications

• Strong fundamentals in analog and digital circuit design.
• Experience with PCB design tools.
• Comfortable writing and debugging embedded firmware.
• Enjoy full hardware development loop.
• Bonus: aerospace hardware or RF systems experience.

Responsibilities

• Design analog and digital circuits for flight-critical embedded systems - power, sensing, actuation, communication
• Lay out PCBs for high-reliability, flight-weight applications where every gram and every trace matters
• Design and build electrical harnesses that survive vibration, temperature swings, and high-g flight
• Write firmware in C/C++ (and whatever else the job demands) for the microcontrollers and FPGAs that run these boards
• Own your hardware from breadboard to flight - debug it, test it, and signoff on it

Skills

Analog circuit design

Digital circuit design

PCB layout

Embedded firmware

Hardware debugging

Tools

EDA tools

Simulation tools

Job description

Estes Aerospace is seeking a hands-on engineer to turn ideas into hardware, from schematic to flight test. You will own the full stack, including circuit design, PCB layout, harness design, and the firmware that brings it to life.

This role focuses on building real hardware for flight-critical systems and requires a passion for turning concepts into working hardware that powers rockets and related systems.