Senior Electrical Design Engineer, Satellites Payload

SpaceX

Confirmed live today High trust

Quick summary

Work type: On-site
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Salary: $150,000–$245,000 / yr
Posted: 84 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live today
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $174k

This role $198k

$127k most similar roles pay here $258k

This role pays more than 73% of similar roles. Most pay $145,000–$202,500 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $198k versus about $174k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About SpaceX

SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft with the mission of enabling humans to become a multi-planetary species. It operates the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship launch vehicles, as well as the Starlink satellite internet constellation.

SpaceX currently has 654 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $130,000–$165,000 across 468 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Senior Electrical Design Engineer, Satellites Payload

Role Posting Log in to save

Sr. Electrical Design Engineer, Satellites Payload (Starlink) joins the Starlink Payload Engineering team to manage the full lifecycle of hardware for advanced communication networks. This role involves designing high-reliability electronics for satellites and spacecraft, specifically focusing on phased array and parabolic antennas, custom networking, compute, and modem hardware. Day-to-day responsibilities include driving system trades, requirements capture, component selection, schematic capture, PCB layout oversight, signal and power integrity analysis, and hardware bring-up through production and flight. The role requires expertise in mixed-signal circuit boards, high power conversion, PAM4 SerDes, and RF front ends. Candidates should possess skills in Python and C/C++ to support complex electrical designs. The work addresses the technical challenge of developing dense, high-performance electronics capable of operating in extreme temperature environments while ensuring seamless integration with mechanical, thermal, and software systems.

Skills

ASICs PCB Layout RF Engineering Phased Array Antennas SerDes FPGA Python C C++ Ethernet DDR4 LPDDR5 I2C SPI Power Integrity Hardware Bring-up Failure Analysis

What you'll do

Develop high-reliability electronics for satellites and spacecraft from concept through deorbit.
Drive system trades, requirements capture, component selection, and schematic capture for complex electrical designs.
Oversee PCB layout, signal integrity analysis, and power distribution for dense hardware systems.
Perform hardware bring-up, debugging, troubleshooting, and failure analysis during the development cycle.
Manage supply chain engagement and vendor relations to ensure successful manufacturing and production.
Define production test procedures and monitor hardware performance on orbit.
Integrate electrical designs with mechanical, thermal, software, and RF engineering requirements.

What we're looking for

Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, physics, or another STEM discipline.
5+ years of experience designing or analyzing circuits, electronic products, or hardware.
Must be a U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee to meet ITAR requirements.
Master's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or similar field (preferred).
5+ years of experience designing hardware from concept through production for new products (preferred).
3+ years of experience designing mixed-signal circuit boards with processors, FPGAs, and high-speed interfaces (preferred).
3+ years of professional experience testing, troubleshooting, and debugging electronics (preferred).
Proficiency in Python or C/C++ and experience with space-grade hardware (preferred).

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