Role Summary

The Payload Operations Lead owns day-to-day payload performance, mission execution, anomaly resolution, and operational optimization across the active satellite fleet. This role serves as the primary technical owner for payload behavior on orbit, ensuring high-quality collections, reliable tasking execution, and rapid troubleshooting of operational issues across payload hardware, calibration, and software interfaces.

This is a hybrid systems role requiring strong operational judgment, payload technical depth, and enough embedded systems understanding to diagnose hardware/software boundary issues without owning full spacecraft flight software development.

Key Responsibilities

• Own payload tasking strategy, scheduling oversight, and collection feasibility assessment
• Lead day-to-day payload operations and mission execution across the active constellation
• Optimize collection efficiency, uptime, and customer delivery performance
• Maintain spectral and radiometric calibration performance and validation
• Monitor payload health trends and investigate on-orbit anomalies
• Diagnose imaging quality issues, collection failures, and operational degradations
• Work closely with software and FSW teams to debug payload interface issues
• Understand and troubleshoot camera drivers, compute interfaces, and payload command paths
• Coordinate across payload, software, analytics, and operations teams for issue resolution
• Drive operational automation and continuous improvement of mission planning workflows
• Support customer-facing feasibility discussions and internal prioritization decisions

Preferred Qualifications

• 7–12+ years of experience in satellite operations, payload systems, or mission operations
• Strong background in remote sensing payloads, optics, or imaging systems
• Experience with spectral/radiometric calibration and payload performance analysis
• Working knowledge of embedded Linux systems and payload interfaces (Jetson AGX, drivers, hardware interfaces)
• Strong understanding of orbital constraints and collection feasibility
• Proficiency in Python and operational tooling development
• Ability to operate effectively across hardware, software, and mission operations teams
• Strong communication and leadership skills with cross-functional stakeholders

Ideal Background

Candidates may come from:

• Payload systems engineering
• Mission operations leadership
• Remote sensing spacecraft operations
• Flight operations with strong payload ownership
• Senior systems engineering roles supporting active constellations