Description

Staff Electro-Optical Payload Engineer

About Us:

BlackSky is a real-time intelligence company. We own and operate the world's most advanced space-based intelligence platform and provide customers satellite imagery, automated analytics and high-frequency monitoring of strategic locations, economic assets and events from around the globe. BlackSky is trusted by the most demanding allied military and intelligence organizations and commercial companies to deliver foresight into critical matters that affect national security and the economy. BlackSky's data enables governments and businesses to see, understand and anticipate change as it happens, giving them the ultimate strategic advantage so they can act quickly. Our global team works with cutting-edge technology to make a difference around the world and prides itself on being people-first, customer-focused and fun.

BlackSky is looking for a strong Staff EO Payload Engineer to work with BlackSky’s Payload and Constellation Engineering teams to architect, design, and test new EO payload concepts to broaden our growing portfolio of imaging payloads.  You’ll have the opportunity to influence the design and development of new payloads, develop the associated integration and test strategies, and support instruments through on-orbit commissioning and longer-term characterization and calibration.  You’ll work closely with and support our Image Processing and Satellite Operations organizations to help design the processing and operations frameworks to characterize, optimize, and improve payload performance for satellites throughout their operational lifetimes on orbit. Your particular emphasis will be on the testing and satellite integration of a new payload and its sensors across its entire lifecycle. You will have the exciting opportunity to not only develop a new payload but also a new optical test facility for it.

Because of the emphasis on testing and integration, this role needs to be proximal to our satellite production facility in Tukwila, WA once hardware starts arriving. This means that while a candidate can start remote but must be local by the end of 2026 and comfortable in a hybrid capacity. 

Responsibilities:

• Develop comprehensive integration, requirements verification, and test strategies for EO payloads.
•  Develop and maintain optical and sensor test facilities.
• Test payloads and support the production team as they integrate your payloads onto satellites.
•  Partner with engineering, program management, and production to ensure comprehensive and efficient end-to-end validation of payload test from plan through design and execution.
•  Define requirements for and oversee the design and build of test Ground Support Equipment (GSE) and other test infrastructure for the payload.
•  Support the development of new EO payload architectures and concepts.
•  Simulate and analyses new sensors, designs, and/or phenomonologies to support R&D and technical strategy development.
•  Develop optical system requirements associated with new designs.
•  Provide technical assistance and oversight with design procurement and integration.
•  Support the characterization and commissioning activities of orbital imaging systems.
• Evaluate on-orbit imaging systems performance, compare with your ground predictions, and evolve your test & performance prediction capabilities.
• Other job-related duties as assigned.

Requirements

Required Qualifications:

• At least 10 years of experience in technical engineering roles involving the specification, modeling, design, integration, and/or test of imaging or non-imaging optical systems and associated components/subsystems, particularly the testing of space-based optical systems.
• Bachelor's degree in optical engineering, physics, or other area of appropriate technical focus (or equivalent experience of four additional years).
• Hands-on laboratory experience and familiarity with typical optical test and meteorology instrumentation and practices, e.g., interferometers, theodolite/laser tracker, optical alignment.
• Proficiency in at least one computer language with an emphasis on numerical or technical computing.
• Strong technical grasp of the physics of optical image formation and associated detector phenomenology, especially in the visible and infrared spectra.
• Proficiency with radiometry, optical imaging and detection figures of merit, and optical system performance modeling/estimation/simulation.
• Adept with developing concise specifications for optical systems within a well-defined, systematic requirements framework.
• Familiarity with satellite/payload interface and CONOPs constraints and associated systems engineering.
• Due to program requirements, this position requires holding US citizenship.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Post graduate degree in a relevant technical field.
• Direct experience in spaceborne optical remote sensing systems.
• Direct experience in focal plane array design and engineering.
• Direct experience in satellite radiometric, spatial, and spectral calibration.
• Proficiency with numerical and technical programming in Python.
• Familiarity and experience with a technical discipline complementary to optics, e.g., mechanical, thermal, electrical engineering.