Principal Systems Engineer - Launch Vehicle

ABOUT FIREFLY AEROSPACE Firefly Aerospace is a space and defense technology company on a mission to reliably and repeatedly launch, land, and operate space systems from Earth to the Moon and beyond. As the partner of choice for critical space missions, Firefly is the first commercial company to launch a satellite to orbit with 24-hour notice and the first company to achieve a successful Moon landing. Headquartered in north Austin, Texas, Firefly is looking for passionate, hardworking innovators to join our team and help fuel our successful trajectory into space. SUMMARY We welcome you to join the Firefly Systems Engineering Team as a Principal Systems Engineer for the Alpha Launch Vehicle, to leverage your creative and technical expertise at the vehicle level over the whole product lifecycle from requirement definition through production, verification & flight. On the Alpha Systems Engineering team, you will work directly with the Stage REs and System Configuration Engineers to establish high confidence in the reliability of our vehicles with a right-sized approach, requiring minimal manual overhead for each mission. You will work with design engineering, manufacturing, integration, test, and launch teams to ensure the production of a thoroughly tested, operationally efficient, and reliable vehicle that meets system-level requirements. The Systems Engineering team is accountable for requirements, interfaces, and test planning; we validate system architectures, manage technical budgets and design configurations, develop test plans, ensure verification of requirements, and support mission operations. You will be expected to be able to speak knowledgeably about the current system configuration and provide status updates on performance, changes, schedule, and risks. It will be your job to translate program plans and the engineering teams� vision into mission success. A successful candidate will be a self-starter, elevate their teammates, and be passionate about the space industry. RESPONSIBILITIES To deliver a robust, reliable, and economical product, successfully completing all mission requirements: Own the traceability, vehicle-wide, between requirements, design data, qualification/acceptance test data, performance capabilities, and as-built records. Serve as internal auditor and champion iterative improvements to ensure rapid auditability of every essential verification activity performed for each Alpha vehicle. Innovate Firefly's Mission Assurance process, creating structured flexibility to meet the needs of programs - ranging from Class D Missions to Category 2 Launch Vehicles - applying the appropriate level of rigor. Support Root Cause Investigations, by contribution or by leading them directly, as appropriate. Support the Alpha Systems Engineering team in driving steady progress in the change control and risk review boards, mentor owners of changes and risks to meet the standard of rigor and responsiveness as appropriate. Set the standard for actionable, high signal-to-noise ratio analyses that drive progress and continuous improvement. Functional Hazard Analysis (FHA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Failure Modes Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), etc Probability of failure analysis, Deorbit Analysis, Debris Risk Analysis, Trajectory Analyses, etc. Work directly with the Mission Management and Regulatory teams on customer, FAA, and Range deliverables. Create training, present lectures, and mentor Systems Engineers and Subsystem Leads for standard tailoring, requirements, test plans, change and risk ownership, and mission assurance analyses; gather and execute process and tool feature requests from them to empower them. Be a force-enabler for the engineering and operations teams at Firefly by continuously eliminating non-value-added overhead across the organization; identify opportunities for automation and implement them. Travel to support off-site integration activities, testing, and launch operations as needed. (~4-…