Sr Principal Architect, System Integration & Test

About the role

As the Senior Principal Architect for System Integration & Test, you will own the system-level test architecture that validates TeraWave's complete hardware and software system working together. Your scope spans the full program lifecycle—from development and qualification testing through to factory acceptance testing at production scale—with deliberate focus on ensuring test coverage is maintained across all system interfaces, including those between hardware and software domains, across organizational boundaries, and across the RF and optical link layers that define TeraWave's end-to-end communications architecture.

Responsibilities

• Own the TeraWave system-level integration and test architecture, defining the test strategy, test facility designs, and validation approach that confirm the complete hardware and software system functions correctly together across all operational scenarios.
• Define and maintain the system-level test architecture across the full program lifecycle—from development and qualification through factory acceptance testing—ensuring consistent test coverage across hardware, software, and interface domains at each stage.
• Design and establish multiple integrated test facilities that build progressively from isolated link-level testing through to fully integrated test environments incorporating satellites and emulations of network and mission operations systems.
• Ensure ground terminal integration and test is treated as a first-class element of the system-level test program, with explicit coverage of space-to-ground link validation and ground-side hardware and software interfaces.
• Collaborate with vehicle and ground hardware integration and test owners to ensure system-level test coverage is maintained across hardware-software interfaces and across organizational boundaries throughout the program.
• Partner with other members of the Chief Systems Architecture group and the broader TeraWave team to integrate system-level tests into the program's CI/CD pipelines, enabling continuous, automated validation as hardware and software evolve.
• Design test systems with scalability and rapid iteration as foundational requirements, ensuring test infrastructure can accommodate changes in both hardware and software through well-established, consistent verification and validation mechanisms.
• Work with payload, satellite, and network teams to define acceptance test requirements and procedures that provide high confidence in system-level performance at production cadence.
• Size and initiate procurement of major test infrastructure needs—including anechoic chambers, thermal vacuum and thermal cycling systems, RF signal simulators, motion control systems, hardware-in-the-loop rigs, and link emulation capabilities—to ensure the program has the test assets needed to meet its development and production milestones.
• Collaborate with payload, network, and satellite teams to define test scenarios that exercise end-to-end system behavior across both RF and optical link domains, including link performance, fault response, and operational mode transitions.
• Support FCC-required radiating tests in collaboration with the responsible teams across Blue Origin, contributing system-level test perspective to ensure appropriate coverage and regulatory compliance.
• Contribute to defining the team responsible for executing the test architecture, including input on team structure, required skill sets, and talent selection, working across payload, satellite, and network organizations.
• Engage with the Chief Systems Architecture office to ensure the test architecture is aligned with and reflective of the TeraWave design reference mission and concept of operations.
• Provide guidance and mentorship to integration and test engineers across the organization, contributing to the development of technical capability within the broader TeraWave team.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, systems engineering, computer science, or equivalent technical field; master's degree preferred.
• 12+ years of experience in system integration and test for spacecraft, satellite, or complex communications systems, with demonstrated experience owning system-level test architecture across both hardware and software domains.
• Direct experience with satellite systems and the test venues and infrastructure used to validate RF and optical communications links, including link budget validation, end-to-end signal chain testing, and hardware-in-the-loop environments.
• Experience with ground terminal integration and test, including validation of space-to-ground link performance and ground-side hardware and software interfaces.
• Experience defining and executing system-level test programs spanning development, qualification, and acceptance testing phases in a high-rate production or constellation context.
• Familiarity with CI/CD principles and experience integrating hardware and software validation into automated test pipelines.
• Sufficient familiarity with network communications standards and protocols to define and execute end-to-end integration test scenarios in collaboration with network engineering teams.
• Experience sizing, specifying, and initiating procurement of major test infrastructure including anechoic chambers, thermal test systems, RF signal simulators, motion control systems, and hardware-in-the-loop environments.
• Demonstrated ability to work across organizational boundaries, aligning hardware and software teams around shared test standards and interface validation requirements.
• Excellent verbal, written, and graphical communication skills, with the ability to communicate test strategy and results clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a fast-paced, dynamic work environment.