Mission Architect - Ground Station & Satellite Ops

Industrious Ventures; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Medical, dental, vision

Flexible PTO

Paid holidays

Retirement plan

Job summary

Northwood Space in Washington, DC area is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to guide satellite customers from initial conversations through deployment and beyond. You will work closely with Business Development, Engineering, and Program Management to translate mission needs into actionable product priorities.

The role requires 7+ years in customer-facing technical roles, a relevant engineering degree, and the ability to travel up to 30%.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in customer-facing technical roles: solutions or systems engineering, mission operations, technical business development, capture engineering, solutions architecture, or TAM.
• Bachelor's in EE, CE, CS, Aerospace, or related field — or equivalent experience with mission systems, ground systems, networking, cloud, or satellite operations.
• Track record taking complex customer engagements from discovery through deployment or expansion.
• Proven ability to build trust with technical customers and turn ambiguous mission needs into concrete priorities.
• Comfortable working in ambiguous environments spanning hardware, software, networking, and business objectives.
• Strong communicator — able to lead technical conversations, write clear customer materials, and brief internal stakeholders.
• Effective across BD, Engineering, Product, Program Management, and customer teams.
• Willing to travel up to 30%.

Responsibilities

• Make customer missions succeed on Northwood's network.
• Serve as the primary technical contact for customers during capture, evaluation, onboarding, and post-deployment.
• Get hands-on with implementation and integration — working directly alongside customers and Engineering to bring up, troubleshoot, and validate their operations on the network.
• Ship code, debug integrations, and validate operations alongside customers and Engineering.
• Support Business Development on qualification, proposals, and expansion.
• Lead technical discovery, exchanges, demos, and readiness reviews alongside Program Management.
• Learn each customer's mission, workflows, constraints, decision criteria, and success metrics in depth.
• Translate customer needs into clear priorities for Engineering, Product, and BD.
• Surface friction points, adoption blockers, and recurring needs that should shape the product and network.
• Coordinate onboarding and deployment readiness — clarifying requirements, flagging risks, and aligning internal teams around customer objectives.
• Build reusable discovery frameworks and customer‑facing materials that help Northwood scale capture and customer success.

Skills

Years of customer-facing roles

Trust-building with technical clients

Strong communication

Ability to lead technical discussions

Ambiguity tolerance

Collaboration across BD, Eng, Product,

Willingness to travel

Education

Bachelor's in EE/CE/CS/Aerospace or related field

Tools

None

Job description

Northwood Space in Washington, DC area is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to guide satellite customers from initial conversations through deployment and beyond. You will work closely with Business Development, Engineering, and Program Management to translate mission needs into actionable product priorities.

The role requires 7+ years in customer-facing technical roles, a relevant engineering degree, and the ability to travel up to 30%.