Staff Electro-Optical Payload Engineer

BlackSky is a real-time intelligence company that operates a sophisticated space-based intelligence platform. They are seeking a Staff Electro-Optical Payload Engineer to design, test, and integrate new electro-optical payload concepts, working closely with various engineering teams to enhance satellite performance.

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:

• 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
• 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