Senior Motor Control Avionics Engineer – Lunar Permanence

Blue Origin; Florida; On-site; USD 183,193 - 256,469; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid Time Off

Job summary

A leading aerospace company is seeking a Senior Motor Control Engineer in Florida. The role involves serving as the Responsible Engineer for motor controllers across multiple vehicles, guiding a multidisciplinary team, and ensuring products meet stringent performance and safety standards. Applicants should have a strong background in motor drive/control systems and experience in safety-critical environments. The company offers a comprehensive benefits package including insurance and 401(k) contributions.

Qualifications

• Experience in developing and delivering motor drive/control systems for stepper and/or BLDC applications.
• Experience with high-precision and/or high-speed motor control in safety-critical systems.
• Experience designing fault-tolerant control electronics and embedded control behavior.

Responsibilities

• Own the motor controller family technical baseline including requirements and design decisions.
• Partner with vehicle and subsystem teams to define product needs.
• Guide multidisciplinary teams from concept to qualification.

Skills

Motor drive/control systems

Fault-tolerant control electronics

Technical leadership

Communication skills

Space radiation effects

Education

B.S./B.A. in engineering or a relevant technical field

Tools

Altium or equivalent

Systems engineering tools such as Jama

Job description

Senior Motor Control Engineer on Core Avionics will serve as the Responsible Engineer for a family of embedded motor controllers reused across multiple vehicles and mechanisms. They will own the technical baseline—requirements, architecture, interfaces, design decisions, configuration control, verification evidence, and qualification approach—and guide a multidisciplinary team to deliver safe, repeatable, high-reliability motor control products supporting human lunar missions. The engineer will interface directly with internal vehicle customers, NASA, and National Team Partners to define product needs and ensure the controllers meet performance, fault tolerance, and safety objectives.

Responsibilities

• Own the motor controller family technical baseline as the Responsible Engineer: requirements, architecture, design decisions, interfaces (ICDs), configuration control, and lifecycle documentation to enable reuse across vehicles.
• Partner with vehicle and subsystem teams ("customers") to define product needs: performance, environments, fault tolerance, safety/hazard controls, operability, integration constraints, and reuse strategy.
• Develop controller architectures spanning power electronics, sensing, embedded processing, and firmware to support motor technologies including BLDC and stepper.
• Guide a multidisciplinary team (EE power, EE digital, firmware, mechanical, analysis, test, systems, safety/reliability, manufacturing) through concept → design → build → integration → test → qualification.
• Define and manage controller interfaces to motors, resolvers/encoders/sensors, vehicle power, and avionics networks; ensure robust EMI/EMC and grounding/bonding strategies as applicable.
• Drive fault‑tolerant motor control design: redundancy strategies, safe‑state behavior, fault detection/isolation/recovery, built‑in test, degraded modes, and telemetry for health management.
• Plan and execute verification: define test strategy and procedures; support bench bring‑up, HIL where appropriate, environmental testing, and qualification/acceptance evidence closure.
• Coordinate parts selection and design practices considering space radiation effects (TID/SEE), derating, and mitigation approaches appropriate to mission.
• Communicate progress, risks, and trade decisions clearly; lead technical reviews and ensure issues are tracked to closure.

Minimum Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience developing and delivering motor drive/control systems for stepper and/or BLDC motor applications (architecture through test).
• Experience with high‑precision and/or high‑speed motor control in safety‑critical or high‑reliability systems.
• Experience designing fault‑tolerant control electronics and embedded control behavior (FDIR, safe state, redundancy management).
• Experience owning a technical baseline for a product line (requirements, ICDs, design trades, verification/validation, configuration control), including reuse across multiple platforms.
• Demonstrated technical leadership guiding multidisciplinary teams to successful product delivery.
• Familiarity with space radiation effects and mitigation strategies relevant to electronics.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including leading technical reviews.
• B.S./B.A. in engineering or a relevant technical field.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing spacecraft mechanism controllers (e.g., solar array drive assemblies, antenna gimbals, valve controllers, pump drives).
• Experience with Altium (or equivalent) for PCB design collaboration/review.
• Experience performing FMEA/FTA (including network/system‑level fault tree contributions) or other reliability/fault tolerance analyses.
• Experience with systems engineering tools such as Jama (or similar).
• Experience working in a safety‑critical development environment and supporting qualification testing campaigns.
• Basic project management skills (planning, milestones, risk management, cross‑team coordination).

Compensation Range

• CA applicants: $183,193.00 – $256,469.85
• CO applicants: $173,466.00 – $242,851.35
• WA applicants: $183,193.00 – $256,469.85

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long‑term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
• Paid Time Off: Up to four weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company‑paid holidays.
• Dependent on role type and job level, employees may be eligible for benefits and bonuses based on the company's intent to reward individual contributions and enable them to share in the company's results, or other factors at the company's sole discretion. Bonus amounts and eligibility are not guaranteed and subject to change and cancellation. Please check with your recruiter for more details.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Blue Origin is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and is committed to attracting, retaining, and developing a highly qualified and dedicated workforce. Blue Origin hires and promotes people on the basis of their qualifications, performance, and abilities. We support the establishment and maintenance of a workplace that fosters trust, equality, and teamwork. We provide all qualified applicants for employment and employees with equal opportunities for hire, promotion, and other terms and conditions of employment, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin/ethnicity, age, physical or mental disability, genetic factors, military/veteran status, or any other status or characteristic protected by federal, state, and/or local law. Blue Origin will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the Washington Fair Chance Act, the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles Fair Chance in Hiring Ordinance, and other applicable laws. For more information on “Know Your Rights,” please see here.

Affirmative Action and Disability Accommodation

Applicants wishing to receive information on Blue Origin’s affirmative action plans, or applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in the application and/or interview process, please contact [e-mail]. Please note this is a publicly managed inbox. Please do not include any personal medical information in your request.