Director, Power Electronics and Motor Control

At Vast our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. Vast is developing next-generation space stations to ensure a continuous human presence in space for America and its allies enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing and unlocking a new space economy for government corporate and private customers. Using an incremental hardware-rich and low-cost approach Vast is rapidly developing its multi-module Haven Station. Haven Demos 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next Haven-1 is expected to become the worlds first commercial space station when it launches followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030. Our team is all-in committed to executing our mission safely and on time. If you want to work with the most talented people on Earth furthering space exploration for humanity come join us.

Vast is looking for a Director Power Electronics and Motor Control reporting to the Vice President of Avionicsto support the development of the systems that will be required for the design and build of artificial-gravity human-rated space stations.

This role willlead the strategy development and execution of power electronics and motor control for the worlds first artificial-gravity human-rated space stations. This person will provide end-to-end technical leadership drive organizational excellence and align cross-functional engineering teams toward mission success.

This will be a full-timeexempt position located in ourLong Beachlocation.

Responsibilities:

• Define the long-term vision and technical roadmap for Power Electronics and Motor Control for Haven-1 and Haven-2.
• Build mentor and scale a diverse high-performing engineering team with a culture of technical excellence safety accountability and innovation.
• Own strategy to ensure on-time and within budget product delivery against internal and external business objectives. Deliver on project timelines from concept through production launch and on-orbit operation.
• Technical leadership in architecture design development and validation of power electronics and motor control including MPPTs power distribution units and motor control.
• Tactical planning with avionics partners in manufacturing test supply chain and quality to meet the program needs in terms of process capacity material readiness equipment availability and staffing.
• Champion electrical hardware development: drive excellence in requirements capture simulation schematic capture PCB design packaging bring-up testing and environmental qualification.
• Establish and manage verification and validation milestones across analysis test and system integration. Deliver hardware with a test-like-you-fly mentality and a data-driven strategy to verify reliability for a human-rated space station.
• Implement engineering standards documentation practices and quality processes to increase reliability and efficiency.
• Initiate R&D objectives and milestones to support Vasts technology roadmap for Haven-2.
• Lead internal and external design reviews with suppliers partners and customers.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering or a related engineering discipline.
• 8 years of experience technical leadership in avionics hardware and/or power electronics for satellite spacecraft or launch vehicle programs.
• 5 years of engineering leadership leading or managing cross functional teams developing a product with complexity in operations and design.
• Proven experience in design and technical mentorship in analog digital and/or mixed-signal circuit design and multi-layer PCB development.

Preferred Experience:

• Demonstrated experience championing a culture of systems engineering heavily emphasizing verification and validation through analysis and test with a test-like-you-fly mentality.
• Track record of deploying products with successful space flight addition experience managing in-flight anomalies to resolution.
• Experience in space flight operations ideally supporting vehicle operations plans and procedures for human space flight.
• Experience managing complex technical development projects from requirements through delivery.
• Demonstrated success deploying hardware with spaceflight heritage including qualification via vibration shock thermal burn-in and TVAC.
• Experience developing spacecraft power electronics such as power distribution DC:DC converter design and motor control for spaceflight environments.
• Deep understanding of motor control for BLDC applications appropriate algorithms and component sizing and selection for optimal control in space environments.
• Experience with electric propulsion (EP) system design and testing for satellites.

Additional Requirements:

• Ability to travel up to 50% of the time
• Willingness to work evenings and/or weekends to support critical mission milestones
• Ability to lift up to 25lbs unassisted
• Specific certifications as appropriate

Preferred Skills:

• Ability to creatively solve complex multidisciplinary problems and make sound decisions with incomplete information.
• Strong organizational documentation written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to thrive in an early-stage startup environment and drive creation and optimization of key processes.
• Knowledge of human-rated system requirements and NASA program standards and familiarity with ISS power compatibility standards.
• Familiarity with design for embedded systems and C/C programming. Experience with embedded development tools (debuggers compilers IDEs) and version control (Git).
• Knowledge of model based design verification through co-simulation and Hardware in the Loop test systems for end-to-end verification.
• Proficiency with electrical test equipment (oscilloscopes multimeters current probes).
• Fluency with ECAD tools such as Altium.
• Fluency with circuit simulation tools power electronics and/or motor control simulation strongly preferred (SPICE LTSpice SIMetrix/SIMPLIS).
• Strong understanding of electronics manufacturing processes and test strategy development.

Pay Range:

• Director Power Electronics and Motor Control - $184900 - $245100
• Senior Director Power Electronics and Motor Control - $22000 - $295000

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY