Verification & Qualification Engineer - Solar & Deployables

About the role

Muon seeks a Verification & Qualification Engineer to own requirements, verification, and qualification for the mission-critical solar and deployable systems that power our spacecraft — solar arrays, solar array drive assemblies (SADA), hold-down and release mechanisms (HDRMs), hinges, dampers, and latches. As we develop these mechanisms in-house, this role ensures traceability from requirements definition through qualified flight hardware.

You'll be the connective tissue of a new hardware group's product development process: flowing down requirements, maintaining the verification matrix, planning qualification campaigns ahead of need, and hands-on executing tests alongside the design engineers — helping establish a lightweight-but-rigorous verification framework. This is a strong fit for engineers from structured product-development backgrounds, including medical device (design controls, DHF, IQ/OQ/PQ), who want to apply that rigor to spaceflight hardware.

Due to the hands-on nature of this role, it requires onsite work at our San Jose three days a week.

Responsibilities

• Capture, flow down, and manage requirements for solar and deployable systems from mission level to component level; build and maintain the requirements verification and traceability matrix (RVTM)
• Partner with design engineers to ensure requirements are complete, verifiable, and testable before design maturity gates
• Develop qualification, acceptance, and protoqualification test plans well ahead of hardware availability, defining test levels, margins, and success criteria per applicable standards (e.g., NASA-STD-5017, GEVS)
• Identify verification risks and long-lead test needs — fixtures, facilities, instrumentation — early, and drive them to resolution
• Coordinate and hands-on execute test campaigns across internal and external facilities: vibration, TVAC, thermal cycling, shock, deployment with gravity offload, and mechanism life testing
• Own test data capture, reduction, and reporting; author qualification and acceptance data packages
• Manage nonconformances and anomalies during test, driving closure with root cause and corrective action
• Contribute to FMECA and single-point-failure analysis to ensure test coverage addresses credible failure modes
• Help establish the group's structured product development process — design reviews, verification gates, documentation standards — and represent verification in design reviews (PDR, CDR, TRR, MRR)

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience developing, building, or testing complex, high-reliability hardware, including 3+ years in requirements management, verification, or qualification
• Demonstrated experience with requirements traceability and structured verification (RVTM or equivalent, e.g., design controls / DHF in medical device)
• Experience planning and/or executing qualification, acceptance, or environmental test campaigns
• Strong understanding of verification methods — test, analysis, inspection, demonstration — and how to select and defend them
• Hands-on test experience: procedures, fixtures, instrumentation, data capture, and reporting
• Excellent written documentation skills: test plans, procedures, reports, and traceability records
• Strong systems-level thinking and attention to detail, with the discipline to maintain rigor under schedule pressure
• Excellent communication and cross-functional coordination skills
• B.S. or higher in Mechanical, Electrical, Systems, Biomedical, Aerospace Engineering, or related field

Nice-to-have Skills

• Space industry experience with flight hardware qualification (mechanisms, arrays, or structures)
• Familiarity with space environmental test standards (NASA-STD-5017, GEVS, ECSS, MIL-STD-810/1540)
• Medical device or other regulated-industry background (design controls, ISO 13485/14971, IQ/OQ/PQ) applied to hardware development
• Experience with requirements management tools (DOORS, Jama, or similar)
• Experience with reliability engineering, FMECA, or single-point-failure analysis
• Familiarity with deployment testing and gravity-offload methods
• Software skills in Python, MATLAB, or similar for data reduction

Salary

The salary range for this role is $183,000 - $198,000, plus a competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location as assessed during the interview process.