Head of Accurate Landing

The role

You will lead the Accurate Landing organization to develop technology for autonomously landing spacecraft anywhere on Earth. You will own the technical development of the software stack, sensor and electrical design, GNC systems, and parachute and recovery hardware.

What you will do

• 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.
• Establish verification strategy, qualification plans, flight-readiness criteria, and technical margins.
• 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 through hiring, organizational design, and performance management.
• 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: Parachutes or aerodynamic decelerators, Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC), Aerospace mechanisms, Flight avionics or autonomous systems, o
• 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.

Nice to have

• 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.

About the company

Inversion is an aerospace and defense company pioneering advanced reentry technology to enable next-generation capabilities from space. The company designs, manufactures, and integrates its spacecraft under one roof in Los Angeles.