Principal Technologist - Human Spaceflight Blue Origin
Kent, WA

Job Description

Description:

As part of a small, passionate, and accomplished team of experts, you will lead efforts to identify, capture, develop, and demonstrate technologies in the area of human spaceflight to support Blue Origin's vision of enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space. You will lead small and multi-disciplinary teams to identify, prioritize, and execute industry-shaping technology projects across the product lifecycle while working with internal and external customers and partners.

You are adept at managing to a plan and a budget in a small team, comfortable adjusting it in response to evolving requirements or external constraints, and prioritizing technology investment all the while infusing and facilitating creativity and innovation. You will help develop a long range technology and innovation roadmap, ensure your efforts support the company vision, and incorporate or evolve projects into major development programs as needed. This position will directly impact the history of space exploration and will require your dedicated commitment and detailed attention towards safe and repeatable human spaceflight.

While in this role, you will leverage your extensive experience leading the development of future space vehicle and habitat crew systems through systems engineering, modeling & analysis, hardware technology development, integration, and testing. This includes environmental control and life support systems, portable environmental control and life support systems, space suits, radiation protection, waste management systems, consumable recovery systems, fire detection/suppression systems, and human integration design. The ideal candidate will have direct experience in the development, integration, and demonstration of closed-loop regenerative life support systems.

Responsibilities:

* Define and manage a portfolio of technologies including capture, execution and infusion into major development programs
* Technical oversight and authority of a range of hardware and software solutions
* Prepare and manage design/technology reviews
* Develop strategic plans and technology roadmaps to meet internal and external customer needs for human spaceflight
* Project engineering, including tracking, reporting, and communicating status as well as definition and management of technical tasks, critical path items, and risks/opportunities
* Develop program plans, budgets, and schedules, both from internally derived goals and constraints and from customer contracts and statements-of-work
* Identify staffing needs and resources priorities
* Budget management and tracking
* Define and capture new Research & Development (R&D) business, including supporting proposals to the U.S. Government
* Support the business development activities to tailor capabilities to meet emerging needs
* Participate in conferences and customer meetings as a representative of Blue Origin
* Establish and foster academic and research partnerships

Qualifications:

* Minimum of a M.S. degree in engineering or related technical field
* At least 15 years industry experience with 5 or more in progressive project management roles
* Demonstrated technical expertise in various technology development for environmental control and life support systems for extreme environments such as spacecraft, spacesuits, or space habitats
* Demonstrated experience leading and managing small teams on fast-paced projects as well as a history of mentoring
* Specific experience leading Research & Development (R&D) projects with track record of success (prior contract awards, patents, production or flight hardware, etc.)
* Excellent written and verbal communication skills
* Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum

Desired:

* Ph.D. in a relevant scientific or engineering discipline
* Experience across multiple portions of the product life cycle (concept definition through operations and use)
* Experience with human spaceflight
* Experience with proposal leadership and support (scope definition, task planning, authoring technical/management volumes, Basis-of-Estimate development, etc.)
* Experience working with and proposing to U.S. Government research agencies (e.g. NASA, DOD, DOE)
* Experience with fault-tolerance strategies and architectures for safety critical systems
* Experience developing requirements, defining subsystem interfaces (both in-house and between external partners/suppliers), and other systems engineering products and practices
* Familiarity with environmental sensors, waste management systems, and water recovery systems

BWKS

Blue Origin offers a phenomenal work environment and awesome culture with competitive compensation, benefits, 401K, and relocation.

Blue Origin is an equal opportunity employer. In addition to EEO being the law, it is a policy that is fully consistent with Blue's principles. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to status as a protected veteran or a qualified individual with a disability, or other protected status such as race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, pregnancy or age. Blue Origin prohibits any form of workplace harassment.