Senior Spacecraft Test Systems Engineer – Lead FPGA

Aleron; Scottsdale (AZ); Hybrid; USD 107,000 - 153,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Background check

Drug screen

On-site or Hybrid work options

Job summary

Acara Solutions is seeking a Senior Advanced TIDES Engineer to lead the technical coordination of spacecraft test environments, spanning hardware, firmware, and software. You will define, architect, and evolve test environments supporting payload development, verification, production testing, and sustainment.

The role requires experience across system integration, FPGA interfaces, and lab automation, with a focus on reusable test architectures. On-site or hybrid work options are available.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a related technical discipline with 8+ years of relevant experience; or Master’s degree with 6+ years of relevant experience.
• 8+ years of experience in systems engineering, integration and test, spacecraft development, aerospace engineering, or related technical environments.
• 5+ years of experience supporting test environment architecture, design, integration, deployment, or verification activities.
• 5+ years of experience with requirements analysis, traceability, interface definition, verification planning, or systems integration.
• 3+ years of experience supporting cross-functional engineering teams across hardware, software, firmware, and systems engineering disciplines.
• 3+ years of experience supporting proposal development, technical solution development, cost estimating, risk assessments, or basis-of-estimate activities.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical coordination across system test environment hardware, platform integration firmware, and software infrastructure teams.
• Support architecture, design, integration, verification, and deployment of spacecraft test environments.
• Translate payload and program requirements into test system capabilities, verification methods, measurement strategies, and test evidence plans.
• Develop test system design packages, interface documentation, rack architectures, cable packages, and calibration plans.
• Coordinate FPGA interfaces, digital I/O requirements, data collection paths, and timing distribution architectures.
• Support automated test infrastructure deployment, software integration, network configuration, and data management environments.
• Conduct trade studies involving hardware, FPGA, software, automation, verification, schedule, cost, and risk considerations.
• Support proposal efforts by developing technical approaches, labor estimates, risk assessments, and execution strategies.
• Lead technical reviews, customer-facing discussions, leadership briefings, and engineering coordination meetings.
• Mentor engineers and help establish engineering standards and best practices across teams.

Skills

Systems engineering

Test & integration

Spacecraft development

Requirements analysis

Cross-functional teams

Proposal development

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a related technical field

Master’s degree in a related technical field

Tools

LabVIEW

TestStand

Python

Git

CI/CD

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Acara Solutions is seeking a Senior Advanced TIDES Engineer to lead the technical coordination of spacecraft test environments, spanning hardware, firmware, and software. You will define, architect, and evolve test environments supporting payload development, verification, production testing, and sustainment.

The role requires experience across system integration, FPGA interfaces, and lab automation, with a focus on reusable test architectures. On-site or hybrid work options are available.