Civil Engineer: Launch Site Operational Infrastructure

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!

This role is part of Blue Origin Operations, which is comprised of Integrated Supply Chain, Test Operations, Safety, Quality, and Mission Assurance. This includes Manufacturing and Supply Chain support across all Blue Origin facilities.

Blue Origin is building the next generation of orbital launch infrastructure, and the Western Range is where our next chapter gets written. A launch site is a lot more than a pad: it's roads, utilities, water and power, port and wharf access, integration and support facilities, and the connective tissue that lets the whole operation run. This is a civil engineering role for someone who wants to own that connective tissue from the front end, walking candidate ground, finding the constraints before they find you, shaping the conceptual design, and driving the early coordination with the agencies and A/E partners who will decide how it gets built.

You'll own civil planning and conceptual site design for the operational infrastructure that stands up a launch site. You'll build the early site layouts, surface the geotech and hydrology and environmental issues before they turn into schedule, and set the technical direction the A/E takes into design development.

This is not a construction-management seat. Most of what you touch isn't under construction yet. The decisions you're making are the ones that lock in what construction will look like two years from now, and the decisions that are hardest to walk back once the design catches up to them.

We're looking for someone who:

- Treats a site walk as a chance to learn something the desk version can't show you
- Is comfortable making decisions with incomplete information, then refining as the picture clears
- Has been through enough of a design cycle to know where the hard problems hide
- Wants to be in the room when we decide where everything goes and how it all talks to each other

Key Responsibilities:

- Lead civil planning and conceptual site design for launch site operational infrastructure: roads, utilities, drainage, port and wharf access, integration and support facilities, laydown and staging, and the civil scope that ties them together
- Support site evaluation and due diligence. Walk the ground, evaluate constraints (geotechnical, hydrology, flood, environmental, utilities, access), and build the case for or against candidate layouts
- Drive early coordination with A/E partners. Shape technical scope, set direction, review schematic and design-development deliverables, resolve cross-discipline conflicts at the stage where they're cheap to resolve
- Support environmental planning and regulatory compliance: NEPA Environmental Assessments, environmental surveys, impact analyses, agency coordination (Space Force, FAA, state and local jurisdictions)
- Produce sketch-level and spot-check civil design in AutoCAD Civil 3D to support fast turns on tie-ins, feasibility studies, and alternatives analysis
- Coordinate with adjacent disciplines (structural, mechanical, electrical, fluids, geotech) to keep the multi-disciplinary picture coherent as the design matures
- Help develop statements of work and technical scope for civil design, planning, and site evaluation activities
- Use BIM workflows to keep site and facility design coordinated across disciplines
- Identify project risks early, surface them, and drive them to closure
- Be in the field when the field needs you: site walks, agency meetings, early construction observation as projects progress

Required Qualifications

- Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering or related engineering discipline
- 3+ years of professional experience in civil engineering design, planning, or site development (grading, drainage, utilities, roadways)
- Proficiency in AutoCAD Civil 3D
- Willingness to travel to candidate and active sites: frequent day trips and the occasional longer stint
- Strong communication: written, verbal, and the kind where you have to make the case for a site decision to a room that doesn't start out agreeing
- Comfortable rapidly changing roles and priorities in a high-paced, ambiguous environment
- Must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident (current Green Card holder)
- Ability to obtain and maintain badging at government installations (Vandenberg SFB)
- Ability to perform hands-on field work in heat, cold, rain, tight quarters, or at heights

Preferred Qualifications

- Direct experience working at or with Vandenberg SFB, Western Range operations, or 30th Space Wing / Space Launch Delta 30 coordination
- EIT certificate or Professional Engineer (PE) license, or actively pursuing
- Experience with site identification, due diligence, or front-end planning for aerospace, industrial, defense, or other heavy infrastructure projects
- Owner's-rep experience: sitting on the sponsor side of A/E design contracts, driving deliverables from concept through schematic
- Working knowledge of adjacent disciplines (electrical, geotechnical, structural, surveying, piping) sufficient to spot when something doesn't add up at the interface
- Experience with marine or port infrastructure (wharfs, docks, shore facilities, dredging coordination)
- BIM software fluency (Autodesk BIM 360 / Construction Cloud, Navisworks, Revit)
- Hydraulic and hydrologic modeling (ICPR, WaterGEMS, or similar)
- Experience supporting NEPA and environmental regulatory research, preparation, and reporting
- Familiarity with permitting and land-use coordination with government agencies (state, federal, military)
- Experience with California-specific environmental regulations or coastal engineering

Base Pay Range for:
CA applicants is $99,201.00 - $138,880.35

Other site ranges may differ

Culture Statement

Don’t meet all desired requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single desired qualification. At Blue Origin, we are dedicated to building an authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every desired qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Export Control Regulations

Applicants for employment at Blue Origin must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e. current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Background Check