Senior Controls Engineer

About Cowboy Space Corp Mission

Cowboy Space Corporation is solving the global energy crisis by building the infrastructure for abundant, resilient space-based solar energy. We are tackling one of humanity’s most complex engineering challenges with a world-class team dedicated to delivering a revolutionary power platform. Cowboy Space Corporation is transforming how civilization powers, computes and connects - from orbit to Earth.

Cowboy Space Corporation is building the infrastructure to power and connect the orbital economy. Our modular, scalable satellites collect sunlight in Low Earth Orbit to enable multiple integrated applications: transmitting energy via infrared lasers (space-to-earth and space-to-space), powering on-orbit high-performance computing clusters (GPU/TPU), and providing secure, high bandwidth optical data transport.

Current energy and data systems rely on complex logistics and outdated infrastructure. Cowboy Space Corporation overcomes these challenges by enabling direct, on-demand, secure, and scalable energy distribution and data processing from space. This will revolutionize how we operate in orbit and on Earth, supporting the rapidly expanding space industrial base, ISAM (In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing) operations, remote regions, and military bases.

Baiju Bhatt founded Cowboy Space Corporation in 2024. Inspired by his father’s work with NASA Langley Research Center, Baiju earned his B.S. in Physics and M.S. in Mathematics at Stanford before co-founding Robinhood, now a public company that has helped over 20 million Americans access the financial system. Cowboy Space Corporation has raised ~$365 million from Index Ventures, Interlagos, Construct Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and others.

This is an ambitious mission that demands extraordinary talent. Cowboy Space Corporation ’s team has worked at places like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke Space, Astranis and NASA, and is based in San Carlos, CA. If you're ready to solve complex technical challenges and help build the most important energy company in the world, we want to hear from you.

You will design and develop motor controls, automation sequences, and embedded control systems for the vehicle’s fluid systems. This includes motor-driven valve and pump actuation, automated fill/drain/vent/conditioning sequences, and closed-loop control of fluid subsystems across propulsion, pressurization, and thermal management. You will work at the intersection of electrical, mechanical, and software engineering to deliver robust, flight-ready control solutions from concept through integration and operations.

• Design and implement motor control systems for electrically actuated valves and pumps, interfacing with drive electronics, feedback sensing, and control algorithms.

• Develop automated sequences for propellant fill, drain, vent, and conditioning operations on both vehicle and ground support equipment.

• Architect and implement closed-loop control for fluid system parameters (pressure, temperature, flow rate, liquid level) across propulsion and thermal subsystems.

• Select and integrate actuators, motors, encoders, position sensors, and pressure/temperature instrumentation for fluid system control.

• Design control electronics hardware (motor drivers, power stages, sensor interfaces) or define requirements for electrical engineering partners.

• Develop embedded firmware and real-time control software for fluid system controllers and sequencers.

• Perform system modeling and simulation to validate control strategies, predict transient behavior, and tune controller gains.

• Define and execute hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and system-level test campaigns to verify control performance and fault response.

• Develop fault detection, isolation, and recovery (FDIR) logic for fluid system automation to ensure safe operations during nominal and off-nominal conditions.

• Work closely with fluid systems, propulsion, avionics, and software teams to integrate controls into the broader vehicle architecture.

• Support propulsion hot-fire testing, vehicle fill/drain operations, and ground…