Principal Hardware Engineer, Space-Grade Network Switch

Blue Origin; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 183,193 - 256,469; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Travel up to 25%

Job summary

Blue Origin is seeking a Principal Hardware Engineer for the Network Switch Platform to own end-to-end hardware design of the switching subsystem, from high-speed Ethernet switch integration to power architecture and PCB layout. The role is hands-on and requires experience shipping complex electronics in fast-moving environments, with potential relocation assistance and travel up to 25%.

You will contribute to orbital-scale networking and spaceflight hardware while collaborating with firmware

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in hardware design, power electronics, or embedded systems in a product development environment.
• Track record of designing and shipping complex electronic products through development into production.
• Experience designing multi-layer PCBs with high-speed digital interfaces and mixed-signal power distribution; proficiency in Altium, Cadence, or equivalent.
• Hands-on experience designing and integrating high-speed Ethernet switch hardware, including network processors (NPUs), SerDes interfaces, and optical or copper PHY technologies.
• Strong knowledge of power supply design (DC-DC converters, LDOs, sequencing, transient analysis) with hands-on SPICE simulation experience.
• Experience with embedded microprocessor design (ARM, RISC-V, or similar) including BSP integration and peripheral bus bring-up (I2C, SPI, UART, CAN).
• Practical EMI/EMC mitigation and signal/power integrity analysis experience.
• Excellent technical documentation and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Architect BMC subsystems using MPSoC, ARM, or RISC‑V microprocessors to monitor line card health, thermal sensors, and voltage rails.
• Design and integrate low‑level communication buses (I2C, SPI, PMBus, SMBus, RS‑485, CAN) for hardware telemetry and sequencing control.
• Develop hardware watchdog circuits and redundant boot sequences for fault recovery.
• Enable in‑flight firmware reprogrammability via ground link, including secure update and rollback mechanisms.
• Architect high‑reliability power distribution with autonomous sequencing, redundant paths, and fault isolation.
• Specify and integrate radiation‑hardened or radiation‑tolerant components rated for SEE and TID in the target orbital environment.
• Design power stages for thermal‑vacuum operation, emphasizing high‑efficiency topologies and conduction/radiation thermal transfer.
• Architect low‑noise power trees using high‑PSRR LDOs and multi‑stage LC filtering to protect sensitive analog and high‑speed digital lanes.
• Lead SPICE‑based transient analysis and hardware validation of load step responses, switching transients, and voltage ripple to millivolt‑level tolerances.
• Develop EMI/EMC mitigation strategies – grounding architecture, decoupling optimization, power/signal plane isolation – to prevent crosstalk between power distribution and high‑speed data paths.
• Lead multi‑layer PCB design for switch line cards: stackup definition, impedance‑controlled routing, thermal management, and DFM.
• Manage CCA BOM procurement, vendor coordination, and assembly oversight.
• Integrate BSPs, SDKs, and device drivers for Ethernet switching and network processor components in collaboration with firmware and software teams.
• Architect and bring up high‑performance Ethernet switching systems, including NPU/switch ASIC integration, PHY and SerDes tuning, VLAN configuration, and MAC‑level validation across high‑density line cards.
• Resolve complex hardware‑software interface issues across L1 and L2, including physical layer bring‑up, transceiver integration, and MAC‑level debugging.
• Lead factory acceptance testing, physical layer validation (optical transceivers, high‑density copper), and commissioning of switch hardware.

Skills

Multi-layer PCB design

High-speed Ethernet

NPU/SerDes

Power electronics

Embedded systems

ARM

RISC‑V

SPICE simulation

EMI/EMC mitigation

DFM/DFT

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical or Computer Engineering

Master's degree in Electrical or Computer Engineering

Tools

Altium

Cadence

SPICE

Job description

Blue Origin is seeking a Principal Hardware Engineer for the Network Switch Platform to own end-to-end hardware design of the switching subsystem, from high-speed Ethernet switch integration to power architecture and PCB layout. The role is hands-on and requires experience shipping complex electronics in fast-moving environments, with potential relocation assistance and travel up to 25%.

You will contribute to orbital-scale networking and spaceflight hardware while collaborating with firmware