Senior Electrical Engineer

About Urban Sky:

Urban Sky is a venture-backed aerospace startup that pioneers utilization of the stratosphere and reimagines the way humans view and analyze the earth. We design, build, operate, and sell stratospheric balloon systems, and the data we collect supports a wide range of applications, from real-time wildfire monitoring to urban mapping. Our technology is also employed by government customers including the Department of Defense (DoD), NASA, and others.

Urban Sky sends flight vehicles to the stratosphere on a weekly basis.

Our team consists of engineers, makers, developers, and doers who believe in the power of human potential when passion meets utility within a small, supportive team. At Urban Sky we strive to create a team culture grounded in candor, inclusion, respect and empowerment.

We aim to build the next chapter of stratospheric history in Denver and are seeking self-starting, open-minded, and hard-working team members.

About The Role:

The Senior Electrical Engineer is a hands-on technical leader responsible for the architecture, design, and validation of electrical systems for the Super Pressure Balloon project, including flight avionics, power distribution, battery/solar energy systems, CAN/RS-485 networks, satellite communications, sensor interfaces, motor/winch control electronics, and termination/cutter circuits. This role will develop design solutions that operate reliably in the stratospheric environment and support long-duration, altitude-controlled flight, rapid ground and flight test iteration, and transition from prototype builds to repeatable flight hardware.

This is a highly cross-functional role that touches bus avionics, Super Pressure flight electronics, motor control, and distributed power, BMS/charge controllers, pressure sensing, GPS/satcom, winch electronics, and ground/acceptance-test equipment - amongst a growing set of electronic applications. Beyond owning design, you will mentor engineers on the Super Pressure electrical and integration team, drive rigorous board checkout and validation processes, and engage directly with flight operations, manufacturing, systems engineering, and customer/program stakeholders to translate mission feedback into the next generation of hardware.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop mature electrical design solutions that are manufacturable at scale and qualified to operate reliably in the stratospheric environment (low pressure, wide thermal excursions, radiation, thermal vacuum considerations) and the specific Super Pressure mission environment, including long-duration power constraints, autonomous recovery from fault modes, and field-maintainable flight hardware.
• Own architecture and design of electrical systems spanning Super Pressure flight avionics, distributed power, battery packs/BMS, solar charging, downstream DC/DC conversion, CAN/RS-485 networking, satellite communications, GPS/GNSS, pressure/temperature sensing, winch/motor control, cutter/termination circuits, and bus/interconnect boards.
• Own power-budget and electrical-architecture trades for day/night mission profiles, battery/solar sizing, load shedding, comms blackouts, modular mission configurations, and fault-tolerant operation.
• Serve as a technical mentor within the Super Pressure cross-functional product team - providing guidance on best practices, technical review, and coaching junior engineers through complex design trades.
• Participate in end-user engagement to gather operational feedback and translate it into concrete design iteration priorities and requirements for SPV, optical flight test, ground test, and production-transition hardware.
• Develop and deliver on electrical engineering design schedules, including milestone definition, risk tracking, and cross-discipline coordination with mechanical, software, firmware, systems engineering, flight operations, manufacturing, test, and program management.
• Own hands-on checkout and diagnostic evaluation of boards - this role is not limited to a desk. You should be equally comfortable in Altium and at the bench with an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, and power analyzer debugging battery-powered flight systems, CAN/satcom interfaces, power converters, motor drivers, sensor boards, and termination circuitry.
• Drive the board checkout process and develop the test hardware, fixtures, and procedures needed to validate complex functionality ahead of system-level integration including pressure-sensor acceptance testing, burst/leak instrumentation, cutter timing tests, power-system characterization, environmental/thermal-vacuum testing, and integrated SPV flight checkout.
• Lead design reviews (requirements, schematic, layout, and post-manufacturing) and enforce a high bar for design rigor, documentation, and traceability across prototype, flight-test, and production-intent configurations.
• Define and uphold EEE parts selection standards, derating practices, and reliability screening appropriate for near-space hardware including low-pressure…