We’re partnering with a fast-growing space technology company building software that is changing how satellite missions are planned, coordinated and operated.
They’re looking for a technically minded Product Manager to take ownership of a core mission planning product used by operators to schedule activities, manage operational constraints and turn mission objectives into executable plans.
This is an opportunity to inherit an established, widely used product and take it to its next stage, improving the experience for existing customers while pushing towards increasingly automated and autonomous mission planning.
You’ll also help shape the direction of an emerging product area focused on payload operations and collaboration between different mission stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities
Own the product roadmap and vision for mission planning and scheduling capabilities.
Take ownership of an established product and determine how it should evolve based on customer feedback, usage and market needs.
Drive the transition from manual planning processes towards increasingly automated, constraint-aware scheduling.
Work closely with spacecraft operators, mission planners, payload teams and customers to understand complex operational workflows.
Translate scheduling challenges, dependencies, priorities and operational constraints into intuitive product capabilities.
Partner closely with software engineering and product design from discovery through delivery.
Contribute to technical and architectural discussions and make informed product trade-offs.
Help define the future direction of an emerging product supporting payload and multi-party mission operations.
Define product success metrics and use customer feedback and data to continuously improve the platform.
Visit customers and represent the product at relevant industry conferences.
Key Requirements
3+ years of Product Management experience within autonomous systems, aerospace, space technology or another complex technical environment.
Experience owning and maturing an existing software product.
Strong understanding of scheduling, mission planning, resource allocation or similarly constraint-heavy operational problems.
Comfortable working closely with highly technical engineering teams.
Strong product discovery skills with the ability to turn complex user workflows into intuitive experiences.
Experience balancing immediate customer requirements against longer-term product strategy.
Able to operate effectively in areas where the product direction is not yet fully defined.
Strong communication and cross-functional leadership skills.
Must meet applicable U.S. export-control requirements and be able to obtain a U.S. Security Clearance.
You’ll have ownership of a product already being used in live mission operations, with the mandate to make it smarter, more scalable and increasingly autonomous. At the same time, you’ll have room to influence new product strategy as the platform expands to support more complex missions, larger fleets and a broader range of operators.
The company offers a high-ownership environment, strong benefits, flexible location options across its U.S. hubs and the opportunity to have a direct impact on real-world space missions.
Fully remote, with occasional travel for hardware integrations
A space & defense company is hiring a Contract FPGA Consultant on a fractional basis to drive FPGA development through a focused two-month engagement. Real hardware, real deadlines and the flexibility of a 20-hour week for someone who can make those hours count.
The programme is moving and the team needs an FPGA specialist who can drop into an active design without a long runway, someone who has taken FPGAs from RTL through verification and onto hardware before, and who’s comfortable being the person the team turns to when the bench doesn’t match the simulation.
What you’ll be doing
Owning FPGA development through the engagement — architecture input, RTL design, simulation and verification
Writing and reviewing RTL (VHDL or Verilog/SystemVerilog) against defined requirements
Building and running testbenches to verify functionality before hardware
Closing timing, managing constraints and driving builds through synthesis and place & route
Supporting hardware bring-up and integration on site as needed — debugging at the board level when the FPGA meets the real world
Interfacing with electronics and systems engineers so the FPGA work lands cleanly in the wider design
Documenting the design and verification so it stands on its own after the engagement ends
What you’ll need
Proven FPGA design experience taken through to working hardware — not just simulation
Strong RTL skills in VHDL or Verilog/SystemVerilog
Verification experience — testbench development and simulation-driven debug
Timing closure, constraints and toolchain fluency (AMD/Xilinx Vivado, Intel Quartus, Microchip Libero or equivalent)
Hands-on hardware bring-up and integration experience — comfortable with scopes, logic analysers and lab debug
Familiarity with common interfaces and protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, LVDS, high-speed serial)
Sound engineering judgment — balancing risk against requirements, cost and a fixed clock
Clear written and verbal communication, and the ability to work independently on fractional hours
Willingness to travel occasionally for hardware integration activities
Nice to have
Space, defense or other high-reliability domain experience
Radiation-tolerant device families and mitigation techniques (TMR, EDAC, scrubbing)
Embedded/SoC FPGA experience (Zynq, PolarFire SoC or similar)
Board-level design awareness — you can read a schematic and talk to the layout engineer
Prior contract or fractional consulting work — you land and add value fast
Interested? – Click apply with an updated copy of your CV. I’ll come back to you within 48 hours. If you don’t hear back within 48 hours, please assume you haven’t been successful on this occasion.
