Avionics & Electrical Power Engineer​/Principal

Sophia Space is a venture-backed deep technology company building high-performance, energy-efficient computing systems designed to operate in orbit. Our work sits at the intersection of aerospace systems, advanced computing, artificial intelligence, and applied physics, enabling a new generation of distributed edge computing capabilities in space.

Having successfully completed our Seed financing, Sophia is focused on scaling its team, products, and capabilities as we prepare for the next stage of growth. We are building a world‑class engineering organization that combines expertise from aerospace, cloud computing, robotics, and AI to solve some of the most challenging problems in space infrastructure. As both a product company and an engineering‑driven organization, we actively leverage modern AI tools throughout our development process to accelerate learning, improve productivity, and help deliver innovative, environmentally responsible computing platforms for the future.

Sophia Space is building TILE — a modular orbital data center node that flies on the Athena demonstration mission in late 2027. The TILE's Electrical Power System — solar array conditioning, battery, and 12 V distribution — is the heart of the product, and its electrical backbone (harness, grounding, inhibits, umbilical, bus interface) ties everything together. We are looking for an experienced engineer to serve as the TILE EPS Cognizant Engineer and to lead TILE electrical systems engineering.

You will report to the TILE Integrated Avionics Product Delivery Manager.

You own the EPS design — architecture, requirements, power budgets, protection philosophy, analyses, and verification — end to end. Where elements are built with external partners, they build to your requirements and you hold design authority: driving design reviews, auditing analyses and test data, negotiating technical changes, and accepting hardware against criteria you define. As the electrical systems engineer, you will own the harness from functions list to fabricated flight cables, define the grounding/bonding architecture, design the launch‑inhibit and umbilical schemes, and carry the battery safety and range safety compliance package through to launch approval.

You will spend real time at the bench: integrating EPS hardware with our Blade compute on the avionics testbed, running power‑quality and fault testing, and supporting environmental campaigns.

Success in this role is measured by delivering and integrating the EPS on schedule: a defensible design at each review, harness and grounding that pass EMC and integration testing, an approved battery safety data package, and a fully tested TILE power chain at delivery to vehicle I&T. Sophia Space is a small team — engineers wear multiple hats, and broader avionics work (interface electronics, test engineering, board bring‑up) is an expected part of the role.

This position is primarily in‑person in Pasadena, California, with occasional hybrid flexibility based on business needs.

U.S. Person status is required due to ITAR/EAR export‑control regulations. U.S. Persons generally include U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), and certain protected individuals as defined by applicable regulations.

• Own the TILE EPS design as design lead, Cognizant Engineer, and subsystem Systems Engineer (solar array regulation/MPPT, battery, 12 V regulated distribution): architecture, requirements, ICDs, analyses, verification planning, and hardware acceptance
• Own the TILE power architecture at system level: power budgets and margins across mission modes, EPSbus‑interfacecompute functional allocation (current limiting, inrush/pre‑charge coordination, protection thresholds), and power‑quality requirements
• Direct external partners building power hardware to your requirements: design‑review leadership, analysis and test‑data audit, change negotiation, schedule‑risk surfacing, and first‑article/flight‑unit acceptance against your criteria
• Own TILE electrical systems engineering: harness design from signal/functions list through drawings, fabrication…