Senior Spaceflight PCB Design Engineer

Clutch Canada; Colorado; On-site; USD 146,000 - 192,000; Full time

Job summary

Capella Space in Louisville, CO seeks a Staff Electrical Hardware Design Engineer to own full-cycle PCBA designs, from concept to flight readiness. You will collaborate with RF, mechanical, software, FPGA/SoC, and operations teams to deliver high-reliability, space-ready electronics.

You will mentor mid-career and early engineers, lead design reviews, define test plans, and drive manufacturing scale-up while ensuring DFM/DFT, ITAR compliance, and cross-disciplinary integration.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or related field.
• 8+ years of experience designing and debugging PCBAs.
• Proficiency in Altium Designer (or similar ECAD tools).
• Hands-on experience with lab instruments (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, power analyzers, etc.).
• Solid understanding of digital buses (I2C, SPI, UART, RS422, CAN, USB, PCIe, Ethernet etc.).
• Familiarity with board bring-up, test planning, and design verification workflows.
• Experience interacting with contract manufacturers, supporting DFM reviews, and resolving production issues.
• Strong documentation habits and organizational skills.
• To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations including ITAR.

Responsibilities

• Own the full electrical design lifecycle for complex spaceflight hardware: Concept of operations, requirements engineering, schematic capture, layout, bring-up, test, and manufacturing handoff
• Develop robust analog/digital designs for mission-critical systems under environmental and performance constraints
• Organize collaborative cross disciplinary design reviews sharing feedback and shaping solutions with a team of experienced engineers
• Provide critical input to schedule planning, hardware requirements, and process improvements
• Lead board-level bring-up and debugging, integrating firmware/software/FPGA with embedded systems
• Define test plans and verification strategies that meet flight readiness requirements
• Play a key role in scaling up our manufacturing facility bringing hardware from prototype to low-volume production
• Collaborate across teams- mechanical, RF, software, FPGA/SoC, and systems to ensure seamless integration
• Mentor early-career engineers contributing to internal process improvements and elevating the overall quality of the team
• Engage with external vendors and CMs, ensuring delivery quality, resolving DFM/DFT issues, and ensuring on-time delivery
• Drive failure analysis and root-cause investigations across flight or test anomalies

Skills

PCB design

Schematic capture

Cross-functional teamwork

Python scripting

Education

Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering

Master’s degree in electrical engineering

Tools

Altium Designer

Job description

Capella Space in Louisville, CO seeks a Staff Electrical Hardware Design Engineer to own full-cycle PCBA designs, from concept to flight readiness. You will collaborate with RF, mechanical, software, FPGA/SoC, and operations teams to deliver high-reliability, space-ready electronics.

You will mentor mid-career and early engineers, lead design reviews, define test plans, and drive manufacturing scale-up while ensuring DFM/DFT, ITAR compliance, and cross-disciplinary integration.