Junior Space Systems Engineer

This is a hands-on engineering role where the successful candidate will be as happy working in the lab as they are behind a computer. You’ll work in our space team but may get involved in ground systems as well - helping to define what we build, model it, then get hands-on to build, test, and prove it.

You’ll see the full lifecycle: early concept and trade studies, through modelling and design, into integration, environmental test, and validation against our ground network. It’s physics-first, hands-on work with a quick path from your bench to orbit. You’ll sit in a small team of software and hardware engineers who don’t draw hard lines between disciplines, and you’ll be expected to cross those lines too.

Specifically, you’ll get stuck into:

• Systems engineering. Turning mission needs into requirements, interfaces, and budgets (mass, power, link, pointing, timing, error). Running trade studies and making the case for a design decision with numbers behind it.
• Modelling & analysis. Building performance models - radiometry and link budgets, atmospheric transmission, pointing and attitude, detection probability - and using them to drive real design choices rather than to decorate them.
• Design & build. Contributing to the design of small space-based payloads and ground subsystems: component selection, layout, tolerancing, and assembly of hardware and optical benches alongside our senior engineers.
• Integration, test & verification. Assembling and aligning hardware, then putting it through environmental qualification (thermal, vibration, vacuum) and performance characterisation - and learning first-hand what survives launch.
• Ground-to-space validation. Working with the ground systems team to validate ranging precision and pointing accuracy end-to-end, so the payload and the network behave as one system.
• Owning your corner. Documenting designs, feeding lessons into the next iteration, and taking real responsibility for a slice of the system as we grow., * Real ownership. A high-impact role with genuine autonomy in a new startup - your contributions directly shape our product and our success.
• Cutting-edge work. Meaningful, challenging, complex problems at the frontier of the space domain.
• Equity that matters. Government-backed EMI scheme options in a fast-growing, VC-backed company.
• A team worth learning from. A dynamic, collaborative environment built on innovation, creativity, and teamwork - with room to grow fast.
• A mission you can believe in. What we build underpins the future of Earth observation and space traffic control.

Level: Junior / early-career - ideal for someone coming off a graduate scheme, though exceptional recent graduates with strong project experience are very welcome, You don’t need flight heritage or a decade of experience. We care far more about strong fundamentals, hunger, and the ability to learn fast in a hands-on environment., * A degree in space systems engineering, aerospace or mechanical or electrical engineering, physics, or a closely related field.

• Strong engineering and physics fundamentals, and the instinct to reach for a first-principles estimate before an opinion.
• Some practical engineering experience - a graduate scheme, internship, placement year, or a serious university project or competition team. What matters is that you’ve built something real and dealt with the consequences.
• Hands-on instincts. You like building, aligning, breaking, and fixing hardware, not only simulating it.
• Scripting ability for analysis and modelling (Python preferred; MATLAB or similar is fine).
• Comfort with ambiguity and ownership. You’re energised by a startup where scope is broad, priorities shift, and nobody hands you a fully-specified task list.
• Clear communication and a collaborative, low-ego approach to working across software and hardware.
• The right to work in the UK.

Nice to have - genuinely optional

• Hands-on experience with space hardware: CubeSats or smallsats, optical ground stations, LiDAR, or laser systems. Academic projects and competitions absolutely count.
• Familiarity with orbital mechanics and the formats that go with it (TLEs, CPF/CRD).
• Exposure to environmental or space qualification testing.
• Optics fundamentals - geometrical and physical optics, radiometry, detectors and laser sources - or exposure to optical design software (Zemax, Code V).
• Comfort in Linux environments, or experience writing instrument control and data-analysis code.
• Awareness of laser safety standards (e.g. BS EN 60825).
• FPGA or embedded work, particularly for timing applications.

Compensation: £35,000-£45,000 depending on experience, plus meaningful equity through our government-backed EMI scheme