Senior Controls Engineer, Spacecraft Attitude Systems

Senior Controls Engineer – Electro-mechanical Products

Location:

Longmont, Colorado

Compensation: $144, USD / year

About The Role

Senior Controls Engineer

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We're working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

The role is part of the In-Space Systems business unit, which is focused on addressing two of the most compelling challenges in spaceflight today: space infrastructure and increasing mobility on-orbit.

Role Overview

BNS Core Systems and Components is seeking a highly experienced Senior Controls Engineer to lead the architecture, development, integration, and qualification of spacecraft attitude-control actuators and momentum-management systems. This role will focus on Reaction Wheel Assemblies (RWAs), associated motor-control electronics, embedded flight software, FPGA development, and control algorithms.

The ideal candidate brings 15+ years of direct experience developing reaction wheel systems for aerospace applications, with deep technical expertise spanning controls modeling and implementation, electric motor drives, embedded systems, and hardware/software integration. This engineer will serve as a technical leader across the full product lifecycle, from concept development through flight qualification, production, and on-orbit support.

Responsibilities

• Lead the system architecture, requirements development, design, implementation, integration, test, and qualification of reaction wheels and momentum-control systems.
• Develop and mature control algorithms for reaction wheel applications, including speed, torque/current, momentum management, fault detection, and safe-mode behaviors.
• Design motor-control solutions for spacecraft actuators, including PMSM/BLDC motors, field-oriented control, space-vector PWM, commutation, current control, and speed-control loops.
• Develop real-time embedded control architectures, including functional decomposition, hardware selection, processor/FPGA partitioning, timing analysis, and software-layer definition.
• Oversee FPGA design and implementation activities for motor-control and actuator systems, including multi-axis or time-division multiplexed control architectures.
• Lead embedded flight software development, including bootloaders, scheduling, system management, mode control, command/telemetry interfaces, and health monitoring.
• Define and implement Fault Detection, Isolation, and Recovery (FDIR) strategies for actuator electronics and software.
• Perform dynamic-system modeling, controls analysis, simulation, and validation using tools such as MATLAB/Simulink and real-time simulation environments.
• Lead integration and test of motors, sensors, power electronics, FPGA firmware, embedded software, and mechanical assemblies.
• Develop verification approaches, test procedures, and data-analysis methods for component- and system-level testing.
• Oversee electrical, mechanical, GNC, systems engineering, manufacturing, reliability, and mission teams to deliver robust, producible flight hardware.
• Provide technical mentorship, design leadership, and review support for engineers across controls, FPGA, and embedded software disciplines.
• Support anomaly resolution, root-cause investigations, and continuous improvements for development and operational systems.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical…