Electrical Engineer, User Terminals - TeraWave

Job description

Application close date: Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the requisition is closed. At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight! Blue Origin is pioneering the future of space-based communications with TeraWave, a revolutionary satellite communications network designed to deliver symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth. This multi-orbit constellation will consist of optically interconnected satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO), providing enterprise-grade connectivity for critical operations worldwide. We are seeking a Senior Electrical Engineer to own user terminal board design. This is a founding hire. The terminal architecture is still converging, and the PCB workstream is waiting on the engineer who will lead it. You would not be inheriting a design — you would be defining the schematic and layout approach for a product line that does not exist yet, working alongside RF, ASIC, and antenna engineers who are locking their own requirements in parallel. If you want a role where your first six months determine how the hardware gets built rather than how it is maintained, this is that role. We are developing a family of terminals at different capability and cost points, so this is not a one-design job. You will carry a design from architecture through prototype bring-up, then apply what you learn to the next variant. Terminals are a mass-market product, not spacecraft hardware — build volume and unit cost are first-order design constraints, and we deliberately reach for terrestrial, COTS, and automotive-industry pricing rather than traditional aerospace pricing. The hardest part of this problem is power and heat. mmWave phased array apertures draw substantial current across a large board area with dynamic load behavior, and the resulting power density means conventional board-level thermal approaches do not come for free. Delivering that current cleanly, and getting the heat out, will dominate the physical design and significantly influence overall terminal size and weight. This is a mixed-signal power integrity and thermal codesign problem as much as it is a high-speed digital problem. You will sit at the boundary between the digital and RF worlds: high-speed data buses and clock distribution on one side, beamforming ICs and radiating elements on the other, with mmWave routing that cannot tolerate the noise the digital side produces. Our RF and antenna teams are in-house, so you will co-design that interface with them directly rather than across a supplier boundary. Core responsibilities include, but are not limited to: • Own schematic capture and layout strategy for user terminal logic boards and aperture PCBAs, from architecture through release to fabrication. • Lead multi-layer, high-density interconnect PCB design, maintaining strict isolation between high-speed digital, IF, and sensitive mmWave routing on shared stackups. • Design power delivery networks capable of supplying and distributing high aggregate current across large-format boards, with the dynamic load behavior that beamforming produces. • Partner with thermal and mechanical engineering on board-level thermal design and heat extraction; the terminal's thermal solution and its electrical design cannot be developed separately. • Collaborate with in-house RF, antenna, and ASIC engineers to define and optimize the physical interface between PCBs and radiating elements, including packaged-antenna integration, front-end IC placement, and feed routing. • Design and route high-speed data buses and reference clock distribution networks connecting modem, processing, and beamforming devices; manage insertion loss, matching, and phase and amplitude consistency across many parallel chains. • Perform signal integrity, power integrity, crosstalk, and EMI simulation and analysis at board and system level. • Contribute to component selection and architecture trades across processing, power, and front-end, treating availability, lead time, and cost as first-class criteria alongside performance. • Drive design for manufacturability and test with PCB fabricators and assembly partners, including panel utilization, stackup feasibility, and yield at production volume. • Lead physical bring-up, hardware debug, and functional lab characterization of prototype boards and integrated terminals. • Support qualification and regulatory compliance testing for an intentional radiator. • Help establish the electrical design practices, review standards, and documentation the terminal program will run on. Required Qualifications: • Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related technical field. • 7+ years of experience in complex hardware product development, such as telecom infrastructure, mmWave or 5G radio hardware, high-performance computing hardware, or comparable. • Proficiency in EDA tools such as Altium Designer or Cadence Allegro, with direct hands-on experience in schematic capture and layout of high-speed, multi-layer, mixed-signal boards. • Demonstrated experience designing robust power delivery networks for high-current, dynamically loaded systems. • Strong working understanding of RF fundamentals — impedance matching, transmission line design, shielding, insertion loss — sufficient to co-design effectively with RF and antenna specialists. • Hands-on experience with high-speed oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, and vector network analyzers for hardware characterization and debug. • Track record of carrying hardware through the full lifecycle, from concept and schematic through integration, test, and production. • Comfort operating with requirements that are still being defined, and the judgmen