Avionics Radiation Hardness Assurance Engineer

A passionate and diverse team is seeking an Avionics Radiation Hardness Assurance Engineer to support NASA’s deep-space exploration missions. Bring your talent, creativity, and energy to help shape systems that inspire global innovation and benefit life on Earth.

About the role

As an Avionics Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA) Engineer, you will support new projects and sustaining efforts across the entire product life cycle. Your work will include standards adjudication, system requirements reviews, milestone design reviews, requirements verification (testing, analysis, inspection), risk management, and failure investigations.

Responsibilities

• Drive critical decision-making for radiation testing and analysis, part performance classification, and improving vehicle, system, and subsystem radiation reliability and survivability.
• Tailor Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA) requirements based on mission, environment, application, and lifetime (MEAL) factors, as well as program/project risk posture.
• Bound stochastic and deterministic electronics failure modes caused by the natural space radiation environment.
• Collaborate with design engineers, project personnel, external providers, and stakeholders to evaluate electronic hardware performance and address impacts on functional, performance, safety, reliability, and availability metrics.
• Prepare radiation test plans, procedures, reports, analyses, and risk assessments, and present findings to team members, project engineers, program managers, systems engineers, and formal boards/panels.
• Read and interpret schematics, circuit diagrams, and system diagrams to evaluate upstream and downstream impacts.
• Recommend design and process improvements, as well as data collection strategies.
• Adapt to technical challenges associated with the increasing use of industrial-grade and automotive-grade components in space applications.
• Work directly with technicians, engineers, managers, and other stakeholders on a variety of projects and programs.
• Report directly to the Electronics and Electrical Section Manager within a group of over 45 Electronics and Electrical Engineers.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical, Materials, Aerospace, Nuclear Engineering, and/or Physics with a focus on radiation from an accredited engineering school, or a Master’s/PhD in a related radiation area with a degree in the same disciplines.
• Technical knowledge of radiation effects in microelectronics and/or avionics systems, including single-event effects, total dose, test strategies, mitigation techniques, and circuit/system analysis.
• Familiarity with Radiation Hardness Assurance (RHA) activities for avionics (analog, digital, power, etc.), such as determining Mission, Environment, Application, and Lifetime (MEAL) factors, developing and interpreting requirements, bill-of-materials gap analysis, radiation testing, environment definition, radiation transport, shielding analysis, dose-depth curves, Single-Event Effects Criticality Analysis (SEECA), derating, Safe Operating Area (SOA), Radiation Design Margin (RDM), and literature surveys.
• Assess EEEE parts, circuits, functions, components, subsystems, and systems to evaluate risks, mitigation strategies, and ability to meet functional, performance, safety, and reliability requirements during and after exposure to mission ionizing radiation.
• Lead or support screening and characterization test efforts for heavy ion, proton, and pulsed-laser Single-Event Effects (SEE), Total Ionizing Dose (TID), Enhanced Low-Dose Rate Sensitivity (ELDRS), Total Non-Ionizing Dose (TNID), Displacement Damage Dose (DDD), etc.
• Design, troubleshoot, and repair radiation test setups, including cables, laboratory test equipment, printed circuit boards, software, firmware, and hardware description languages.

Preferred Qualifications

• Excellent communication and organizational skills, with the ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team designing and building NASA spaceflight hardware.
• Experience with test hardware such as oscilloscopes, multimeters, logic analyzers, function generators, electronic load banks, power supplies, and power analyzers.
• Project-based experience designing, building, testing, and troubleshooting embedded systems, IoT, power electronics, battery systems, and other electrical hardware (requirements definition, system modeling/simulation, circuit analysis, PCB design/fabrication, requirements verification).
• Familiarity with systems engineering and integration (S&EI) and/or specialty engineering for NASA spaceflight or similar high-complexity environments.
• Ability to analyze and interpret complex avionics design products, including schematics, block diagrams, component specifications, parts lists, and fault tree analysis.
• Experience deriving risk assessments and models for systems/subsystems from stakeholder meetings.
• Proficiency with MBSE tools (MagicDraw, Cameo) and familiarity with GraphML file formats and network modeling.
• Proficiency in MS Office Suite (Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, OneDrive, Project).
• Familiarity with Poisson, Markov, and/or Gaussian statistical analysis.
• Experience as a test engineer or laboratory scientist.
• Strong ability to remain flexible and effective amid frequent changes, shifting priorities, and evolving expectations while maintaining clear communication (Teams, email, phone) and consistent follow-through despite administrative delays.
• Demonstrated proactive approach to resolving issues, including seeking clarification and support when necessary.

Benefits

• Excellent personal and professional career growth opportunities.
• 9/80 work schedule (every other Friday off), where applicable.
• Onsite cafeteria (breakfast and lunch).
• Health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Paid time off and holidays.
• Retirement benefits (including 401(k) matching).
• Educational reimbursement.
• Parental leave.
• Employee stock purchase plan.
• Tax-saving options.
• Disability and life insurance.
• Pet insurance.

Note: Benefits may vary based on employment type, location, and applicable agreements. Positions governed by a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act (SCA), or other employment contracts may include different provisions.

Proof of U.S. citizenship or U.S. permanent residency may be required. Must be able to complete a U.S. government background investigation.