Sr. Radiation Effects Engineer, Project Sunrise

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 Advanced Concepts and Enterprise Engineering (ACE), supporting Blue Origin’s mission of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. The team fosters innovation and drives engineering workflows of the future, shared solutions and standards, simplicity and lower costs, and manufacturable design.

Join Blue Origin as we build infrastructure in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re developing a satellite constellation of orbital data centers, Sunrise, designed to transform how compute infrastructure is deployed and leveraged.

We are seeking a subject matter expert in radiation effects to lead the effort of ensuring this cutting-edge commercial hardware can operate reliably in the harsh environment of space. You will be responsible for the entire radiation effects lifecycle for the complete compute payload—from characterizing the environment and developing novel mitigation strategies to planning and executing test campaigns for all its advanced hardware. This is a mission-critical role for an engineer who is excited to solve first-principles problems and establish the Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA) playbook for deploying high-performance COTS electronics in space.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

- Develop, maintain, and execute the Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA) Plan for the entire compute payload.
- Characterize the mission's orbital radiation environment using tools like CREME96, SPENVIS, or other approaches and translate those models into component-level test requirements.
- Define and own the end-to-end radiation mitigation strategy, establishing a design margin policy and working with designers on part selection, shielding, and fault tolerance schemes.
- Translate device-level single event effects (SEEs) into system-level impacts such as data corruption, reset rates, or degraded performance, and work with systems engineers to bound their effect.
- Plan, schedule, and execute radiation effects test campaigns at accelerator facilities, managing the long-lead logistics required for beam time.
- Maintain the radiation risk register, part-by-part test status, and all supporting analyses to inform design reviews and flight-readiness decisions.
- Collaborate with hardware, software, and EEE parts engineering teams to ensure mitigation strategies are seamlessly integrated into the system design.

Minimum Qualifications:

- Bachelor of Science in Physics, Electrical Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, or a related field.
- 6+ years of professional experience as a Radiation Effects Engineer for space applications.
- Deep understanding of radiation effects, including Total Ionizing Dose (TID), Single Event Effects (SEE), and displacement damage, particularly in advanced CMOS nodes.
- Demonstrated, hands-on experience qualifying Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components for radiation tolerance.
- Experience using industry-standard radiation environment modeling tools.
- Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Preferred Qualifications:

- Master’s or Ph.D. in a relevant discipline.
- 10-14+ years of experience in a senior radiation effects role.
- Direct experience planning and executing test campaigns at major accelerator facilities.
- Specific experience analyzing radiation effects on a variety of complex hardware, such as SoCs, FPGAs, GPUs, high-density memory, or high-speed transceivers.
- Familiarity with relevant industry standards for radiation testing and qualification (e.g., MIL-STD-883, JEDEC, NASA EEE-INST-002).
- Proven ability to lead a comprehensive test and qualification campaign from planning to completion.

Base Pay Range for:
CO applicants is $144,179.00 - $201,849.90
WA applicants is $156,802.00 - $219,522.45

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

- Required for all positions: Blue’s Standard Background Check
- Required for Certain Job Profiles: Defense Biometric Identification System (DBIDS) background check if at any time the role requires one to be on a military installation
- Required for Certain Job Profiles: Drivers who operate Commercial Motor Vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) or combination of power unit and trailer that meets or exceeds 10,001 lbs. and/or transports placardable amounts of hazardous materials by ground in any vehicle on a public road while in commerce, may be subject to additional Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations including: Driver Qualification Files, Medical Certification (obtained before onboarding), Road Test, Hours of Service, Drug and Alcohol Testing, vehicle inspection requirements, CDL requirements (if applicable) and hazardous materials transportation/shipping training.
- Required for certain Job Profiles: Ability to obtain and maintain Merchant Mariner Credential, which includes pre-employment and random drug testing as well as DOT physical

Benefits

- Benefits include: Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
- Stock Options for all regular employees (working at least 20 hours/week)
- Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.
- Dependent on role type and job level, employees may be eligible for benefits and bonuses based on the company's intent to reward individual contributions and enable them to share in the company's results, or other factors at the company's sole discretion. Bonus amounts and eligibility are not guaranteed and subject to change and cancellation. Please check with your recruiter for more details.