Position Overview

Parallax Space is seeking a Avionics &

- Electrical Power Engineer to design, develop, integrate, and qualify electrical power systems for spacecraft, payloads, and mission hardware. This is a mid-to-senior-level role with direct ownership of power architecture, power distribution, and battery design across the full product lifecycle.

The engineer will translate mission and product requirements into reliable, manufacturable electrical power systems encompassing generation, energy storage, regulation, conversion, protection, switching, and distribution. The role will own power budgets and operating profiles; size batteries and power-distribution hardware; develop and review schematics, interfaces, and analyses; and support hardware through procurement, build, integration, environmental test, delivery, and mission operations.

The successful candidate will combine strong spacecraft power-system fundamentals with practical hardware judgment. This individual must be comfortable moving between system-level trades and detailed design, working directly with multidisciplinary engineering teams and suppliers, troubleshooting integrated hardware, and making timely decisions in a fast-paced development environment.

The position may be filled at the mid-level or senior level based on the candidate’s experience, technical depth, and demonstrated scope of ownership.

Key Responsibilities

Electrical Power System Architecture

Develop end-to-end electrical power system architectures for spacecraft, payloads, and mission hardware

Translate mission requirements and operational concepts into power-generation, storage, conversion, distribution, and protection requirements

Create and maintain power budgets, energy balances, peak-load assessments, mode-based load profiles, efficiency estimates, and system margins

Size solar-array interfaces, batteries, power converters, regulators, distribution channels, harnesses, protection devices, and related hardware

Perform architecture trades addressing regulated and unregulated buses, voltage selection, redundancy, fault tolerance, scalability, recurring cost, and mission life

Define and control electrical interfaces, grounding and bonding approaches, power-quality requirements, and compatibility across subsystems

Support system design reviews and clearly communicate architecture decisions, margins, assumptions, and technical risks

Power Distribution &

- Conversion

Design and develop power distribution units, power conditioning and distribution units, electronic power systems, and related spacecraft power electronics

Define load-switching, current-limiting, inrush-control, overvoltage, undervoltage, short-circuit, reverse-polarity, and fault-containment strategies

Develop or evaluate DC-DC converters, point-of-load regulation, battery charge and discharge electronics, bus regulation, and power switching circuits

Establish channel allocation, load shedding, safe-state behavior, redundancy, telemetry, command, and fault-response requirements

Create and review schematics, electrical block diagrams, interface-control documents, wiring diagrams, component selections, and printed circuit board layouts

Evaluate power integrity, conducted emissions and susceptibility, grounding, isolation, transient response, ripple, stability, efficiency, and thermal performance

Partner with avionics, flight software, systems, and mission operations teams to implement power control, monitoring, autonomy, and fault management

Battery &

- Energy Storage Design

Lead battery architecture, cell selection, pack sizing, configuration, and performance assessment for spacecraft and payload applications

Develop battery requirements addressing energy, power, voltage, depth of discharge, cycle life, calendar life, radiation, temperature, storage, and mission duration

Design or oversee cell balancing, state-of-charge monitoring, charge control, protection, fusing, isolation, telemetry, and battery management functions

Perform charge and discharge modeling, capacity and degradation analysis, duty-cycle assessment, fault analysis, and operating-margin evaluation

Coordinate battery electrical, thermal, mechanical,



safety, handling, shipping, storage, and integration requirements across the product team

Evaluate cells, modules, battery assemblies, and suppliers using test data, heritage, qualification status, manufacturability, availability, and mission risk

Develop battery development, screening, acceptance, qualification, and life-test plans in coordination with test and mission assurance teams

Analysis, Reliability &

- Technical Documentation

Perform circuit analysis, worst-case analysis, component derating, tolerance analysis, efficiency assessment, thermal dissipation analysis, and electrical stress evaluation

Contribute to failure modes and effects analysis, fault-tree analysis, reliability assessments, hazard analyses, and single-point-failure reviews

Select electrical and electronic parts appropriate for the mission setting, availability needs, producibility, and program risk posture

Maintain requirements, calculations, models, design descriptions, interface definitions, test procedures, reports, and verification evidence under configuration control

Ensure designs comply with applicable internal standards, customer requirements, workmanship expectations, and mission-assurance practices

Identify technical risks early and develop practical mitigation, development-test, qualification, or redesign plans

Hardware Development &

- Production Readiness

Support hardware development from breadboard and engineering models through qualification and flight production

Partner with mechanical, thermal, systems, avionics, software, manufacturing, quality, and supply chain teams throughout the design lifecycle

Apply design-for-manufacturing, design-for-test, design-to-cost, modularity, and component-availability principles to power hardware

Generate and release engineering drawings, bills of material, specifications, test requirements, and manufacturing documentation

Support supplier selection, technical evaluations, design reviews, source inspections, first-article builds, and issue resolution

Investigate nonconformances and failures, perform root-cause analysis, and implement corrective actions that improve reliability and yield

Support configuration changes and product improvements while protecting qualified design baselines and customer commitments

Integration, Test &

- Qualification

Develop verification plans and procedures for power-system functional, performance, fault-response, efficiency, stability, and margin testing

Define electrical ground support equipment, battery simulators, solar-array simulators, loads, instrumentation, and automated test needs

Support board-, unit-, subsystem-, and vehicle-level integration and test activities

Lead troubleshooting of power anomalies using laboratory instrumentation, telemetry, software data, schematics, and structured root-cause methods

Support environmental qualification and acceptance testing including thermal vacuum, vibration, shock, electromagnetic compatibility, and mission-representative cycling

Analyze test results, document compliance, disposition anomalies, and close verification evidence

Provide technical support during delivery, launch-site processing, commissioning, and on-orbit operations as required

Cross-Functional &

- Customer Execution

Work closely with program leadership to maintain credible technical plans, schedules, estimates, and resource requirements

Participate in customer meetings, design reviews, technical interchange meetings, and proposal development

Translate customer needs into executable power-system solutions while maintaining clear control of scope, interfaces, assumptions, and risk

Support make, buy, or partner decisions and technical management of external power-system and battery suppliers





Mentor junior engineers and contribute to engineering standards, reusable designs, analysis tools, and lessons learned

Communicate technical status, tradeoffs, risks, and decisions clearly to engineering teams, leadership, customers, and suppliers

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field

5+ years of experience designing or developing electrical power systems, power electronics, batteries, or related high-reliability hardware

Experience with spacecraft, satellite, payload, aerospace, defense, or other mission-critical electrical systems

Demonstrated understanding of electrical power architecture, power distribution, conversion, regulation, switching, protection, and fault management

Hands-on experience with battery sizing, cell or pack selection, charging, discharging, protection, performance analysis, and integration

Experience developing power budgets, load profiles, energy balances, electrical interfaces, and system-level trade studies

Experience creating or reviewing schematics, component selections, printed circuit board layouts, wiring diagrams, and electrical design documentation

Experience performing circuit analysis, worst-case analysis, derating, tolerance analysis, efficiency assessment, and electrical troubleshooting

Experience supporting hardware through design reviews, build, integration, test, qualification, and delivery

Proficiency with laboratory equipment such as power supplies, electronic loads, oscilloscopes, multimeters, data-acquisition systems, and power analyzers

Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to operate effectively across multidisciplinary teams

Ability to work hands-on in a fast-paced development and production environment

Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

Preferred Qualifications

8+ years of directly relevant experience for consideration at the senior level

Direct experience designing spacecraft electrical power systems, power distribution units, power conditioning and distribution units, or battery systems

Experience with lithium-ion spacecraft batteries, battery management systems, cell screening, life testing, and safety controls

Experience designing DC-DC converters, regulated or unregulated power buses, solid-state power controllers, load switches, or fault-protection circuits

Experience with analog circuit design, mixed-signal electronics, embedded control, telemetry, or FPGA- and microcontroller-based power hardware

Familiarity with radiation effects, parts derating, destructive physical analysis, electrical overstress, and space-grade parts selection

Experience with electromagnetic compatibility, grounding and bonding, conducted susceptibility, conducted emissions, and power integrity

Experience with SPICE, MATLAB/Simulink, Python, electrical CAD, PCB design tools, requirements-management tools, or equivalent engineering software

Experience with AS9100, configuration management, nonconformance disposition, root-cause analysis, and aerospace qualification practices

Experience transitioning power hardware from development into repeatable production

Experience with national security space, DoD, Space Force, SDA, NASA, or commercial satellite programs

Active U.S. security clearance

Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a related technical discipline

Core Competencies

Power Systems Engineering

Battery Design

Power Electronics

Hardware Ownership

Analytical Rigor

Design for Manufacturing

Troubleshooting

Technical Judgment

Why Join Parallax Space Join a team building critical infrastructure for the future of space.

At Parallax

Space, you will work on real hardware, real missions, and meaningful national-scale challenges alongside a high-performing team of engineers, operators, and builders.

Compliance Parallax Space is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and business needs. Certain positions may require eligibility to access export-controlled information under ITAR/EAR regulations and/or the ability to obtain a U.S. security clearance.

📌 Avionics & Electrical Power Engineer (Northumberland County)
🏢 Parallax Space
📍 Northumberland County