Space Systems Architect: Payload & RF Excellence

ICEYE US; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 145,000 - 175,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Flexible PTO

Friendly work environment

Extra perks

Job summary

ICEYE US is seeking a Systems Engineer / Architect to own the full systems engineering lifecycle for spaceborne SAR payloads, from concept through flight readiness. You will drive architectural trade studies, define interfaces, and shape fault management across RF, digital, mechanical, software, and program leadership teams.

This role requires practical, hands-on leadership in requirements, verification, validation, and mission ConOps, with emphasis on traceability, budgets, and design margins

Qualifications

• 7+ years of systems engineering on space, radar, or avionics programs with at least 2 years in a system architect role.
• 5+ years Demonstrated experience leading FMEAs and reliability analyses for flight hardware.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience with requirements decomposition, management, and verification closure.
• 2+ years working knowledge of radar or RF.
• 5+ years experience defining and tracking system-level budgets (link, mass, power, thermal) through full design lifecycle.
• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related field.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the payload system architecture including avionics.
• Decompose mission and system-level requirements into subsystem and interface specifications; maintain full traceability through verification closure.
• Lead FMEA and reliability analyses at system and subsystem level; identify single-point failures and drive redundancy or mitigation decisions.
• Design the fault management architecture including FDIR strategies, safe modes, and anomaly response aligned to mission ConOps.
• Establish and track Technical Performance Measures (mass, power, thermal, link, data rate budgets); flag margin erosion and drive resolution.
• Own the V&V strategy and map every requirement to its verification method across design gates (PDR → CDR → TRR → FRR).
• Develop and refine mission ConOps including orbit geometry, imaging modes, duty cycles, and ground segment interfaces.
• Define and control inter-subsystem and payload-to-bus ICDs.
• Collaborate with software engineers on embedded flight software architecture, command/telemetry definitions, and mode transitions.
• Partner with the product team to translate product roadmap objectives into system-level technical requirements and trade spaces.
• Support and present at formal design reviews with complete artifact packages.
• Perform system-level budget and trade analyses to inform make-vs-buy, design margin, and cost-schedule-performance decisions.

Skills

Systems engineering

FMEA & reliability analyses

Requirements decomposition

Verification closure

Budget tracking (link, mass, power, 
-

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering / Aerospace Engineering / Systems Engineering

Master's degree (preferred)

Tools

SpaceWire

MIL-STD-1553

CAN

FPGA

Real-time OS

Job description

ICEYE US is seeking a Systems Engineer / Architect to own the full systems engineering lifecycle for spaceborne SAR payloads, from concept through flight readiness. You will drive architectural trade studies, define interfaces, and shape fault management across RF, digital, mechanical, software, and program leadership teams.

This role requires practical, hands-on leadership in requirements, verification, validation, and mission ConOps, with emphasis on traceability, budgets, and design margins