The Role
Lead hardware engineering across opto-mechanical, structures, thermal, and avionics teams. Own design margin discipline, drive AIT build flow from mirror fabrication through environmental test, define make-vs-buy strategy, develop managers, partner with software/systems/program teams, and lead design reviews and anomaly investigations to scale production for VLEO missions.
Summary Generated by Built In
Be one of the Bedo 100
Albedo is making Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) mainstream, building the infrastructure to usher every satellite mission set into this new orbital domain. We build buses, integrated satellites, and turnkey missions for customers to thrive in VLEO, between 250 km - 400 km, where proximity compounds performance and drag self-cleans debris.
As part of the first 100 employees at Albedo, you will have a big impact on Albedo’s trajectory to proliferating VLEO — whether you’re advancing hardware to increase satellite longevity, scaling production for large constellations, building next-gen flight and ground software to push performance, or enabling missions that matter for national security and our day-to-day life here on earth.
How We Operate: Albedo takes a first-principles approach — in space and in business. We move with speed, take calculated risks, and learn quickly. We use AI regularly to create leverage in every discipline across the company. We work in-person at our Broomfield CO HQ to maximize team and company productivity. We work hard and with urgency to compound our first-mover advantage.
Who We're Looking For: Builders who want to own outcomes, not tasks. Systems thinkers who balance precision with iteration while thinking about the big picture. Individuals who are energized by creating a category rather than competing in an existing one. You’ll join a team that has already proven what others said wasn’t feasible and is now scaling and upgrading our VLEO buses & payloads to serve mission sets across sensing, communications, and responsive operations.
If you can feel the excitement running through your veins, apply to be one of the Bedo 100.
About this role:
Albedo is hiring a Director of Hardware Engineering to lead our hardware org across opto-mechanical, structural, thermal, and avionics disciplines. You'll own the design margin discipline for precision spaceflight hardware, drive the AIT build flow from mirror fabrication through integration and environmental testing, and execute our make-vs-buy strategy across the org as we scale to production. You'll develop hardware engineering managers, partner closely with production, software, and systems, and stay hands-on with the highest-stakes design and anomaly work.
What You’ll Do:- Lead the hardware engineering organization — opto-mechanical, structures, thermal, avionics — across approximately three to four teams of managers and ICs
- Own design margin discipline against design standards across thermal, structural, radiation, electrical, mass, and optical budgets, and make those margins routine rather than heroic
- Drive the AIT build flow from primary mirror unit fabrication through bus-to-payload integration through environmental test, eliminating the integration-stage discoveries that should have been caught analytically
- Set and defend make-vs-buy strategy: vertical integration where the physics is the moat, aggressive outsourcing of commodity, decisions documented and revisited
- Develop hardware engineering managers who can run their domains without requiring you in every technical decision
- Partner with the Director of Software, Systems Engineering, and program management to close the analytical loop between hardware design, flight telemetry, and the next build
- Engage directly in design reviews, anomaly investigations, and supplier technical assessments — operate in the system without becoming a bottleneck
- Twelve-plus years in precision spaceflight hardware, with at least four leading hardware engineering managers
- Hands-on depth in opto-mechanical engineering, structural dynamics, or precision pointing systems — you have personally owned a precision payload or precision pointing chain end-to-end
- Track record of design margin discipline against NASA, MIL, or equivalent standards, with examples where your margin calls held up under flight conditions
- Demonstrated cross-disciplinary system reasoning: you think in budgets across optics, structures, thermal, GNC, mass, and power, and you can trace budget violations to root cause
- Experience leading hardware through environmental test campaigns and on-orbit anomaly resolution
- Real make-vs-buy decisions you have owned and can defend with cost, schedule, and capability data
- Comfort holding a schedule against pressure when the analysis demands it, and yielding when the analysis says you can
- $250,000 to $275,000 per year
Compensation and Benefits for Full-Time Roles:
- Employee friendly equity compensation
- 4% direct matching 401k
- Health Insurance: 100% employee coverage & 75% dependent coverage
- Parental leave and childcare coverage
- Flexible vacation and sick time from day one
- 12 company holidays
- $100 monthly wellness benefit
- Relocation package if not based in Denver
The final compensation package is subject to change if the candidate's experience and company need drive a different job level than originally slated for the position.
Albedo does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to Albedo employees. Albedo is not responsible for any fees or overhead related to unsolicited resumes.
Additional Requirements: In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire. All persons hired will be required to be a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.
Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled: Albedo is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Relocation: Relocation support for this position is available
Applicants must be a U.S. Person as defined under 22 CFR 120.62
#LI-Onsite
Research shows that while men apply to jobs where they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other underrepresented people tend to only apply when they meet 100% of the qualifications. At Albedo, we'd rather hear from you. We care more about how you think than which boxes you check. We value people who do the math, make their assumptions explicit, and ask the annoying questions: what breaks, what's the failure mode, what has to be true for this to work? If that sounds like you, apply, even if you don't meet every line.
Skills Required
- Twelve-plus years in precision spaceflight hardware and experience managing multiple hardware engineering managers
- Hands-on depth in opto-mechanical engineering, structural dynamics, or precision pointing systems; ownership of a precision payload or pointing chain end-to-end
- Proven track record of design margin discipline against NASA, MIL, or equivalent standards with flight-validated margin calls
- Cross-disciplinary systems reasoning across optics, structures, thermal, GNC, mass, and power with root-cause tracing
- Experience leading hardware through environmental test campaigns and on-orbit anomaly resolution
- Documented make-vs-buy decisions owned and defendable with cost, schedule, and capability data
- Ability to hold schedule against pressure when analysis demands and yield when analysis permits
- Willingness to work in-person at Broomfield, CO HQ (onsite) and participate in company AIT/processes
- Must be a U.S. Person (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, protected individual, or eligible for required Dept. of State authorizations)
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The Company
What We Do
Albedo is the first space company to commercialize and provide platform capabilities to the new orbit regime of VLEO. VLEO — very low Earth orbit — transforms satellite capabilities by operating twice as close to Earth, enabling dramatic improvements in performance while reducing system costs. Albedo’s first satellite Clarity-1 — launched in March 2025 and now operating in VLEO — exemplifies the disruptive potential of the company’s proprietary VLEO platform. Clarity-1 delivers imagery at a resolution previously exclusive to drones & aircraft or billion-dollar classified satellites, while showcasing a platform that can support a variety of mission types. The world is rapidly changing and a new level of visibility and transparency is required to solve some of our largest problems. Albedo’s 10cm visible and 2m thermal imagery will fuel insights for industries such as mapping, insurance, utilities, solar, agriculture, carbon offsets, infrastructure sustainability, national security, and much more.
