Lead Aerospace Engineer

Aerospace Lead, technical leadership of a small team 7-10+ years

Other levels: Aerospace Engineer Senior Aerospace Engineer Principal Aerospace Engineer Junior Aerospace Engineer

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SpaceX

Boeing

Lockheed Martin

Blue Origin

Northrop Grumman

Rocket Lab

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The job description

Tech stack. CATIA/NX, JIRA/Confluence, Nastran/CFD, program scheduling tools, design review systems, supplier scorecards

About the role

You will lead a small team of aerospace engineers delivering a vehicle subsystem through an active development program. You own the technical output and the people: assignments, reviews, milestone readiness, and professional growth. This role matters because aerospace milestones are unforgiving, and your leadership determines whether your team arrives at PDR and CDR with clean, substantiated designs or with open actions and schedule slips. You will translate program milestones into weekly execution: breaking subsystem scope into owned work packages, sequencing analyses and tests against long-lead hardware, and keeping the team focused when priorities shift. Your one-on-ones will balance technical coaching with career development, because aerospace teams retain engineers who are growing. You will manage upward as deliberately as you manage downward, giving program management early warning of risks with recovery options attached, never surprises. You will protect engineering rigor under schedule pressure, knowing which corners can be cut safely and which ones become findings, failures, or worse.

What you will achieve

Deliver your subsystem scope through PDR, CDR, and qualification on schedule, with review actions trending to zero before each milestone
Build a team of 4 to 7 engineers with clear ownership, growth plans, and a review culture that catches errors before formal reviews
Cut analysis and design rework by 30 percent through standardized methods, checklists, and peer review discipline
Own staffing, priority, and escalation decisions across competing program demands while protecting team health
Drive interface agreements with adjacent teams that eliminate late-discovered incompatibilities
Improve team velocity and morale by instituting clear ownership, weekly technical standups, and a blameless review culture focused on catching errors early

What you will bring

Must-haves

7 to 10+ years of aerospace engineering experience with multiple program milestones completed
Demonstrated technical leadership: leading design teams, running reviews, owning cross-discipline coordination
Strong program instincts: milestone planning, risk registers, resource loading, and readiness assessments
Deep expertise in your subsystem with working knowledge of full vehicle integration
Ability to hire, coach, and performance-manage engineers including difficult conversations
Calm, decisive prioritization when schedule, mass, and performance collide
Excellent communication upward to program management and outward to customers and suppliers

Nice-to-haves

Experience leading teams through flight test campaigns
Knowledge of agile hardware or lean product development practices
Background across commercial and defense aerospace environments
Formal leadership or project management training
Training in structured problem solving methods such as 8D or fault tree analysis