Director, Power Electronics and Motor Control
$185k - $245k USD
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 Demo’s 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 world’s 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 Avionics, to support the development of the systems that will be required for the design and build of artificial-gravity human-rated space stations.
This role will lead the strategy, development, and execution of power electronics and motor control for the world’s 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-time, exempt position located in our Long Beach location.
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 Vast’s technology roadmap for Haven-2.
- Lead internal and external design reviews with suppliers, partners, and customers.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s 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 heritage. In 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 - $184,900 - $245,100
- Senior Director, Power Electronics and Motor Control - $220,00 - $295,000
Pay Range: California
$184,900—$295,000 USD
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
Base salary will vary depending on job-related knowledge, education, skills, experience, business needs, and market demand. Salary is just one component of our comprehensive compensation package. Full-time employees also receive company equity, as well as access to a full suite of compelling benefits and perks, including: 100% medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents, generous paid time off; up to 20+ days of vacation for exempt staff and up to 10+ days of vacation for non-exempt staff with the ability to cash-out unused vacation annually, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, ClassPass credits, personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health, and other discounts and perks. We also take pride in offering exceptional food perks, with snacks, drip coffee & onsite barista, cold drinks, and dinner meals remaining free of charge, and lunch subsidized as part of Vast’s ongoing commitment to providing high-quality meals for employees.
U.S. EXPORT CONTROL COMPLIANCE STATUS
The person hired will have access to information and items subject to U.S. export controls, and therefore, must either be a “U.S. person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.62 or otherwise eligible for deemed export licensing. This status includes U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), and asylees and refugees with such status granted, not pending.EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
Vast is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Vast is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.