Head of Accurate Landing
Inversion · Vista · $230/day (stated in the posting)
Advanced Reentry Technologies
Who We Are:
Inversion is an aerospace and defense company pioneering advanced reentry technology to enable next-generation capabilities from space. By combining high-performance materials, precision aerodynamics, and mission-driven autonomy, Inversion is transforming reentry into an operational capability for an entirely new class of missions.
The company’s highly maneuverable reentry spacecraft, Arc, is designed for rapid global cargo delivery, hypersonic testing, and other national security missions that require precise, controlled flight through the atmosphere. Arc creates an entirely new transportation domain, unlocking unprecedented speed and global reach.
Headquartered in Los Angeles, Inversion designs, manufactures, and integrates its spacecraft under one roof, enabling the company to move rapidly from concept to flight. The company is backed by leading investors including Y Combinator, Spark Capital, and Lockheed Martin Ventures, with customers across the U.S. government and commercial space industry.
Position Overview
As the Head of Arc Accurate Landing at Inversion, you will report directly to the Chief Engineer of Arc. You will spearhead the creation, design, and leadership of one of Inversion’s most innovative capabilities: the technology behind autonomously and accurately landing a spacecraft anywhere on Earth. Inversion’s spacecraft are capable of fully autonomously landing anywhere and in any environment with pinpoint accuracy. You will own the technical development of the software stack, sensor and electrical design, GNC systems, and parachute and recovery hardware from conceptual design to continuous testing and deployment onto production vehicles. In this role, you will:
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the Accurate Landing organization, including mechanical, GNC, avionics, software, systems, and test engineers.
- Own the technical architecture and delivery of Arc’s recoverable landing system.
- Deliver the landing system from requirements and architecture through development, qualification, vehicle integration, flight readiness, and recovery operations.
- Own the Drop Test Vehicle roadmap and ground and aerial test campaigns used to mature parachutes, mechanisms, avionics, software, range safety, and field operations.
- Establish verification strategy, qualification plans, flight-readiness criteria, and technical margins for the complete landing sequence.
- Lead system-level trades across landing accuracy, deployment reliability, structural loads, descent rate, mass, power, volume, operability, and schedule
- Build and develop the Accurate Landing team, including hiring, organizational design, performance management, succession planning, and development of future technical and people leaders.
- Create a culture of disciplined test execution, operational safety, technical rigor, and rapid learning.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent technical experience.
- Typically 10+ years of hands-on experience in complex vehicle development, hardware integration, and environmental testing.
- Typically 3+ years of engineering leadership experience, including responsibility for multidisciplinary teams and technical delivery.
- Demonstrated ownership of a complex system through design, integration, qualification, and flight or field operations.
- Deep technical competency in at least one relevant area, such as:
- Parachutes or aerodynamic decelerators.
- Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC)
- Aerospace mechanisms.
- Flight avionics or autonomous systems.
- Vehicle-level test and qualification.
- Experience leading hardware-rich development and flight-test campaigns with high consequence of failure.
- Proven ability to make sound technical and resource decisions under aggressive schedules and incomplete information.
- Demonstrated excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Proven ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment.
- Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government Secret/Top Secret security clearance.
Desired Qualifications
- Master’s degree or Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
- Direct experience developing or testing parachutes, parafoils, guided recovery systems, airborne systems, or precision-landing vehicles.
- Experience with spacecraft, launch vehicles, reentry systems, hypersonic vehicles, or high-reliability defense hardware.
- Experience planning and operating aerial drop tests, including range coordination, aviation assets, telemetry, recovery, and operational safety.
- Experience with parachute deployment dynamics, inflation loads, descent modeling, guidance, navigation, control, and Monte Carlo analysis.
- Experience developing mechanisms involving pyrotechnic, pneumatic, spring-loaded, or other high-reliability actuation.
- Familiarity with SIL, HIL, flight-data analysis, environmental qualification, and hardware acceptance testing.
- Experience managing external suppliers for parachutes, fabrics, mechanisms, avionics, test aircraft, or flight-test services.
- Experience building an engineering organization in a fast-paced startup or similarly resource-constrained environment.
Our office headquarters is located in Playa Vista, CA. This position requires in office presence.
The California annual base salary for this role is currently $161,000 - $230,000. Pay Grades are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual pay will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: interviews and an assessment of several factors that are unique to each candidate, job-related skills, relevant education and experience, certifications, abilities of the candidate and internal equity.