Verification & Qualification Engineer - Solar & Deployables
San Jose, CA, USA
USD 183k-198k / year + Equity
About the role
Muon seeks a Verification & Qualification Engineer to own requirements, verification, and qualification for the mission-critical solar and deployable systems that power our spacecraft — solar arrays, solar array drive assemblies (SADA), hold-down and release mechanisms (HDRMs), hinges, dampers, and latches. As we develop these mechanisms in-house, this role ensures traceability from requirements definition through qualified flight hardware.
You'll be the connective tissue of a new hardware group's product development process: flowing down requirements, maintaining the verification matrix, planning qualification campaigns ahead of need, and hands-on executing tests alongside the design engineers — helping establish a lightweight-but-rigorous verification framework. This is a strong fit for engineers from structured product-development backgrounds, including medical device (design controls, DHF, IQ/OQ/PQ), who want to apply that rigor to spaceflight hardware.
Due to the hands-on nature of this role, it requires onsite work at our San Jose three days a week.
Responsibilities
- Capture, flow down, and manage requirements for solar and deployable systems from mission level to component level; build and maintain the requirements verification and traceability matrix (RVTM)
- Partner with design engineers to ensure requirements are complete, verifiable, and testable before design maturity gates
- Develop qualification, acceptance, and protoqualification test plans well ahead of hardware availability, defining test levels, margins, and success criteria per applicable standards (e.g., NASA-STD-5017, GEVS)
- Identify verification risks and long-lead test needs — fixtures, facilities, instrumentation — early, and drive them to resolution
- Coordinate and hands-on execute test campaigns across internal and external facilities: vibration, TVAC, thermal cycling, shock, deployment with gravity offload, and mechanism life testing
- Own test data capture, reduction, and reporting; author qualification and acceptance data packages
- Manage nonconformances and anomalies during test, driving closure with root cause and corrective action
- Contribute to FMECA and single-point-failure analysis to ensure test coverage addresses credible failure modes
- Help establish the group's structured product development process — design reviews, verification gates, documentation standards — and represent verification in design reviews (PDR, CDR, TRR, MRR)
Required Qualifications
- 5+ years of experience developing, building, or testing complex, high-reliability hardware, including 3+ years in requirements management, verification, or qualification
- Demonstrated experience with requirements traceability and structured verification (RVTM or equivalent, e.g., design controls / DHF in medical device)
- Experience planning and/or executing qualification, acceptance, or environmental test campaigns
- Strong understanding of verification methods — test, analysis, inspection, demonstration — and how to select and defend them
- Hands-on test experience: procedures, fixtures, instrumentation, data capture, and reporting
- Excellent written documentation skills: test plans, procedures, reports, and traceability records
- Strong systems-level thinking and attention to detail, with the discipline to maintain rigor under schedule pressure
- Excellent communication and cross-functional coordination skills
- B.S. or higher in Mechanical, Electrical, Systems, Biomedical, Aerospace Engineering, or related field
Nice-to-have Skills
- Space industry experience with flight hardware qualification (mechanisms, arrays, or structures)
- Familiarity with space environmental test standards (NASA-STD-5017, GEVS, ECSS, MIL-STD-810/1540)
- Medical device or other regulated-industry background (design controls, ISO 13485/14971, IQ/OQ/PQ) applied to hardware development
- Experience with requirements management tools (DOORS, Jama, or similar)
- Experience with reliability engineering, FMECA, or single-point-failure analysis
- Familiarity with deployment testing and gravity-offload methods
- Software skills in Python, MATLAB, or similar for data reduction
Salary
The salary range for this role is $183,000 - $198,000, plus a competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location as assessed during the interview process.
About Muon Space
Founded in 2021, Muon Space is an end-to-end Space Systems Provider that designs, builds, and operates LEO satellite constellations delivering mission-critical data. Our revolutionary, integrated technology stack enables customers to optimize every dimension of their missions for faster time-to-orbit and superior constellation remote sensing performance. Our state-of-the-art facility in the heart of Silicon Valley is optimized for manufacturing spacecraft and rapid, flexible payload integration at scale. From climate monitoring to national security, Muon Space is dedicated to delivering Earth Intelligence for a safer and more resilient world.
Taking Care of Our Team
At Muon salary is only part of our total compensation package. In addition to salary, full-time employees receive equity compensation as well as benefits including medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401k retirement plan, short & long term disability and life insurance. We also offer three weeks paid vacation for new employees, along with 12 paid holidays, unlimited sick time and paid parental leave.
Our mission embraces the entire planet and we believe our team should too. Muon is dedicated to creating a diverse and dynamic company and workforce. We believe in equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, age, national origin, citizenship, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or gender identity. We value diversity in the workplace, and that starts with our applicants. We encourage you to apply, even if you don't check all the boxes, and we look forward to reviewing your application! In addition, if you need a reasonable accommodation as part of your application for employment or interviews with us, please let us know.
ITAR/EAR Requirements
This position requires access to export controlled information. To conform to U.S. Government export regulations applicable to that information, applicant must either be (A) a U.S. person, defined as a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (green card holder), (iii) refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, (B) eligible to access the export controlled information without a required export authorization, or (C) eligible and reasonably likely to obtain the required export authorization from the applicable U.S. government agency. The Company may, for legitimate business reasons, decline to pursue any export licensing process.
