Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent technical experience.
• Typically 10+ years of hands-on experience in complex vehicle development, hardware integration, and environmental testing.
• Typically 3+ years of engineering leadership experience, including responsibility for multidisciplinary teams and technical delivery.
• Demonstrated ownership of a complex system through design, integration, qualification, and flight or field operations.
• Deep technical competency in at least one relevant area, such as:
• Parachutes or aerodynamic decelerators.
• Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC)
• Aerospace mechanisms.
• Flight avionics or autonomous systems.
• Vehicle-level test and qualification.
• Experience leading hardware-rich development and flight-test campaigns with high consequence of failure.
• Proven ability to make sound technical and resource decisions under aggressive schedules and incomplete information.
• Demonstrated excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Proven ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment.
• Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government Secret/Top Secret security clearance.
  

Desired Qualifications

• Master’s degree or Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
• Direct experience developing or testing parachutes, parafoils, guided recovery systems, airborne systems, or precision-landing vehicles.
• Experience with spacecraft, launch vehicles, reentry systems, hypersonic vehicles, or high-reliability defense hardware.
• Experience planning and operating aerial drop tests, including range coordination, aviation assets, telemetry, recovery, and operational safety.
• Experience with parachute deployment dynamics, inflation loads, descent modeling, guidance, navigation, control, and Monte Carlo analysis.
• Experience developing mechanisms involving pyrotechnic, pneumatic, spring-loaded, or other high-reliability actuation.
• Familiarity with SIL, HIL, flight-data analysis, environmental qualification, and hardware acceptance testing.
• Experience managing external suppliers for parachutes, fabrics, mechanisms, avionics, test aircraft, or flight-test services.
• Experience building an engineering organization in a fast-paced startup or similarly resource-constrained environment.

Our office headquarters is located in Playa Vista, CA. This position requires in office presence.

The California annual base salary for this role is currently $161,000 - $230,000. Pay Grades are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data.  Individual pay will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: interviews and an assessment of several factors that are unique to each candidate, job-related skills, relevant education and experience, certifications, abilities of the candidate and internal equity. 

ITAR Compliance:

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR

here

.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

Inversion provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, veteran status, or disability.

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