Chief Engineer, Space Vehicle Autonomy

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!

The role is part of the In-Space Systems business unit, which is focused on addressing two of the most compelling challenges in spaceflight today: space infrastructure and increasing mobility on-orbit.

The role is part of the Blue National Security business unit in the Advanced Systems organization, which is focused on addressing two of the most compelling challenges in spaceflight today: space infrastructure and increasing mobility on-orbit.

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. As the  Chief Engineer, Space Vehicle Autonomy , you will serve as the senior technical authority driving the architecture, design, and maturation of autonomous decision-making systems for our satellite platforms; systems that must not only act independently, but perceive and understand the orbital environment around them. You will bridge traditional deterministic autonomy engineering with modern AI/ML and computer vision techniques, weaving  Space Domain Awareness (SDA)  directly into the autonomy architecture so our spacecraft can sense, characterize, decide, and act on their surroundings in increasingly complex and contested space environments. This role calls for a leader who can drive software and AI/ML autonomy architecture while partnering closely with GN&C, perception, and systems engineering teams to optimize the overall system design. This is a technical leadership position — you will set the technical direction, adjudicate the hardest engineering trade-offs, and serve as the final technical authority on autonomy and SDA architecture across the program. While this role is scoped to support National Security satellite platforms, the autonomy and SDA architecture principles developed here are expected to inform future reuse across Blue Origin's broader portfolio, including civil space and deep-space missions requiring autonomous navigation (e.g., lunar/Mars optical navigation).

Special Mentions

• Relocation assistance provided  for this role.

• Candidates should expect to  travel approximately 25% of the time  to support customer engagements, test campaigns, and reviews.

• This position supports Blue Origin's National Security business unit and may require access to controlled or classified information.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to

• Serve as the  technical authority  for space vehicle autonomy, setting the architecture and technical strategy for onboard autonomous decision-making across fault management, navigation, and mission execution.

• Define and evolve the  autonomy architecture  spanning traditional rule-based/deterministic autonomy (state machines, fault detection, isolation and response (FDIR)) and modern  AI/ML and convolutional neural network (CNN)-based  perception and decision-making methods.

• Provide expert technical direction on  Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA)  loop implementation for autonomous spacecraft operating in Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO) mission profiles.

• Integrate  Space Domain Awareness (SDA)  principles into onboard autonomy — enabling spacecraft to detect, track, characterize, and respond to other objects and activity within the surrounding orbital environment.

• Lead the technical strategy for  perception stacks , including sensor fusion, relative navigation, space object detection/tracking, and vision-based pose estimation supporting autonomous maneuvering, inspection, and SDA missions.

• Guide the development and oversight of  MLOps pipelines , including training data curation, model validation, verification, and lifecycle management for flight-qualified ML/AI models supporting autonomy and SDA functions.

• Define and own the verification strategy for autonomy and SDA functions across the full test hierarchy, including software-in-the-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) demonstration campaigns, ensuring algorithms and models are rigorously matured and validated prior to onboard/flight integration.

• Chair and participate in  Engineering Review Boards  and  Failure Review Boards , adjudicating technical gaps between as-designed, as-built, and as-tested configurations.

• Act as the final decision-maker on complex, multidisciplinary autonomy technical problems, balancing performance, safety, and mission assurance in contested and congested space environments.

• Partner with systems engineering, GN&C, flight software, mission operations, and intelligence/SDA stakeholders to ensure autonomy solutions are integrated across the full spacecraft architecture.

• Serve as a technical bridge across autonomy, perception, GN&C, and systems engineering, ensuring decision-making and navigation/estimation functions are architected as one coherent system and that requirements, interfaces, and verification stay aligned across disciplines.

• Partner with GN&C, computer vision, software, and systems engineering leads to define clean interfaces across the autonomy architecture, ensuring the system can support navigation-driven mission profiles such as deep-space optical navigation without the autonomy chief engineer owning detailed navigation filter design.

• Drive innovation in autonomy engineering practices, staying current with emerging AI/ML techniques and translating them into flight-ready capabilities for both autonomous operations and space domain awareness.

• Maintain deep, current familiarity with the autonomy and SDA needs, CONOPS, and risk posture of national security space customers (e.g., Space Force, NRO, SDA), proactively shaping the autonomy architecture and roadmap to anticipate, not just respond to, evolving customer and policy requirements around autonomous decision-making.

• Architect autonomy and SDA solutions with an eye toward cross-program reusability, ensuring core autonomy architecture, perception, and decision-making frameworks developed for National Security platforms can be extended or adapted to support future civil space and deep-space missions (e.g., autonomous optical navigation for lunar/Mars missions).

• Represent the program's autonomy and SDA technical strategy in customer reviews, milestone meetings, and proposal efforts.

• Mentor and elevate the technical rigor of engineers across the autonomy discipline without formal people-management responsibility.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science degree in an engineering-related field.

• Minimum of  20 years of advanced spacecraft design, development, or analysis experience .

• Demonstrated experience as a technical authority or chief engineer on complex spacecraft or autonomy programs.

• Deep understanding of traditional autonomy mechanisms (state machines, FDIR, rule-based logic) as well as AI/ML/CNN-based approaches to autonomy.

• Experience adjudicating complex technical trade-offs and leading Engineering/Failure Review Boards.

• Demonstrated understanding of national security space customer needs, CONOPS, and requirements for autonomous and SDA systems, including experience translating mission and policy constraints (e.g., human-on-the-loop/in-the-loop authority requirements) into engineering requirements and architecture.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in Engineering (Robotics, Spacecraft Design, Automation, or related field); PhD desired.

• Direct experience with  Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO)  and other autonomous mission architectures.

• Background in  autonomy architecture  development for satellites or other autonomous vehicles.

• Working knowledge of