Bringing space closer to Earth. Backed by Y Combinator.
About the role
Albedo is hiring a Director of Hardware Engineering to lead our hardware org across opto-mechanical, structural, thermal, and avionics disciplines. You'll own the design margin discipline for precision spaceflight hardware, drive the AIT build flow from mirror fabrication through integration and environmental testing, and execute our make-vs-buy strategy across the org as we scale to production.
What they're looking for
- Twelve-plus years in precision spaceflight hardware, with at least four leading hardware engineering managers
- Hands-on depth in opto-mechanical engineering, structural dynamics, or precision pointing systems — you have personally owned a precision payload or precision pointing chain end-to-end
- Track record of design margin discipline against NASA, MIL, or equivalent standards, with examples where your margin calls held up under flight conditions
- Demonstrated cross-disciplinary system reasoning: you think in budgets across optics, structures, thermal, GNC, mass, and power, and you can trace budget violations to root cause
- Experience leading hardware through environmental test campaigns and on-orbit anomaly resolution
- Real make-vs-buy decisions you have owned and can defend with cost, schedule, and capability data
More about this role
Albedo is making Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) mainstream, building the infrastructure to enable every satellite mission to enter this new orbital domain. We build buses, integrated satellites, and turnkey missions for customers to thrive in VLEO, below 300 km, where proximity compounds performance and drag self-cleans debris.
As part of the first 100 employees at Albedo, you will have a big impact on Albedo’s trajectory to proliferating VLEO — whether you’re advancing hardware to increase satellite longevity, scaling production for large constellations, building next-gen flight and ground software to push performance, or enabling missions that matter for national security and our day-to-day life here on Earth.
How We Operate: Albedo takes a first-principles approach — in space and in business. We move with speed, take calculated risks, and learn quickly. We use AI regularly to create leverage in every discipline across the company. We work in-person at our Broomfield, CO HQ to maximize team and company productivity. We work hard and with urgency to compound our first-mover advantage.
Who We're Looking For: Builders who want to own outcomes, not tasks. Systems thinkers who balance...
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