Senior Electrical Engineer – Space Hardware

EVONA; Durham (NC); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Relocation support

Job summary

EVONA in Durham, NC is seeking a Senior Electrical Engineer to own electronics for a space hardware imaging system. You will guide from concept through schematic, PCB design, build, bring-up and flight-readiness, collaborating with RF, antenna, software and mechanical teams in a fast-growing startup.

You'll join a small team of ~20 engineers with no mandatory satellite experience, and you will influence the electrical architecture while stacking your hands-on skills across design, testing and

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on electrical/electronics hardware design.
• Experience with Altium, Cadence/OrCAD, KiCad.
• Experience with mixed-signal and/or high-speed digital electronics.
• Laboratory debugging with oscilloscopes, logic analysers and related equipment.
• Ability to work across disciplines and solve hardware problems independently.

Responsibilities

• Own the electronics behind a space-based imaging system.
• Lead electrical architecture and component selection.
• Schematic capture and complex multilayer PCB design.
• Work with mixed-signal, high-speed digital, power and RF-adjacent electronics.
• PCB stack-ups, grounding, impedance control and signal/power integrity.
• Prototype builds, bring-up, debugging and troubleshooting.
• EMI/EMC and design for reliability.
• Hardware integration and system-level testing.
• Move prototype electronics towards flight-ready hardware.

Skills

Hands-on hardware design

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Hardware debugging

Reliability-focused design

High-speed digital electronics

Tools

Altium

Cadence/OrCAD

KiCad

Job description

Senior Electrical Engineer – Space Hardware

Durham, NC | $130k–$170k + Equity | On-site

EVONA are partnered with an early-stage Space start-up developing a new generation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites.

They've proven their core technology, raised their Seed round and are now moving into the next phase: building the flight hardware for their first satellites.

They're still a small team of around 20 people, so this isn't a role where you'll own one circuit on a mature program. They're looking for an Electrical Engineer who can take complex electronics from a blank sheet of paper through schematic, PCB design, build, bring-up and test.

You do not need previous satellite or antenna experience.

We're interested in engineers coming from aerospace, defence, avionics, radar, RF, robotics, autonomous systems or other high-reliability hardware environments who want to apply that experience to spacecraft.

The opportunity

You’ll take significant ownership of the electronics that sit behind a novel space-based imaging system, working directly alongside RF, antenna, software and mechanical engineers.

That means getting hands‑on across:

• Electrical architecture and component selection
• Schematic capture and complex multilayer PCB design
• Mixed‑signal, high‑speed digital, power and RF‑adjacent electronics
• PCB stack‑ups, grounding, impedance control and signal/power integrity
• Prototype builds, board bring‑up, debugging and troubleshooting
• EMI/EMC and design for reliability
• Hardware integration and system‑level testing
• Taking prototype electronics towards flight‑ready hardware

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of hands‑on electrical/electronics hardware design
• Strong experience with Altium, Cadence/OrCAD, KiCad or similar
• Strong mixed‑signal and/or high‑speed digital electronics experience
• Hands‑on laboratory experience debugging real hardware using oscilloscopes, logic analysers and other electrical test equipment
• Comfortable working across disciplines and independently solving hardware problems
• Experience building hardware where reliability really matters

Experience with spacecraft, avionics, radar, RF electronics, defence systems, FPGAs, SI/PI, EMI/EMC, radiation, environmental qualification or high‑reliability electronics would be particularly valuable — but isn’t essential.

This is an opportunity to move out of a large engineering organisation and into an environment where you genuinely own the hardware you design.

You’ll join early enough to influence the electrical architecture, make key design decisions and follow your boards all the way from initial concept through the lab and ultimately into orbit.

As the company grows and builds out its engineering organisation, there is significant scope for your responsibilities to grow with it.

Package

$130,000–$170,000 base + equity, benefits and relocation support