Vice President, Spacecraft

ABOUT FIREFLY AEROSPACE

As an end-to-end space transportation company, Firefly Aerospace is on a mission to enable our world to launch, land, and operate in space – anywhere, anytime. Our launch vehicles, lunar landers, and orbital vehicles provide government and commercial customers with full mission services from low Earth orbit to the surface of the Moon and beyond. Firefly is looking for passionate, hardworking innovators to join our team and help fuel our successful trajectory into space.

SUMMARY

As the Firefly Vice President of Spacecraft (SC), you will be the leader of the spacecraft team, provide top level vision, management, inspiration, business development and support for all spacecraft programs. You will be responsible for growing the organization to be the trusted industry leader for Spacecraft services. Key products within the group include lunar landers and high-performance orbiting and exploration spacecraft.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Leadership

• Bring a high level of vision, energy and focus with the ability to manage a wide array of various tasks in a very diverse environment with limited structure
• Define and implement the spacecraft strategy for landers, orbital vehicles, and mission management
• Grow (Hiring, mentoring, promoting) the matrixed team of engineers, managers, technicians and other support staff to meet all customer performance, cost, and schedule requirements
• Primary interface from the SC team to corporate, senior advisors, and customers to ensure strong trusting relationships and delivery of all commitments

Technical

• Support design reviews, conferences, panel discussions, and high-level meetings with customers and investors
• Mentor the team in technical, negotiation, and project management aspects to ensure mission success, schedule compliance, and profit on all missions
• Continually drive the balance of implementing proven processes and technologies mixed with forward leaning innovation and modern tools and techniques

Business Development

• Lead the team in supporting Business Development as a lead reviewer and author in proposal bid-no-bid decisions, proposal win themes, and provide key elements to the proposal like the corporate message, price and schedule commitment.
• Network within your existing industry contacts to expand the Spacecraft (SC) portfolio of funded missions while also planning for capability growth and development to meet future commercial and government customer roadmaps.
• Work closely with the team on strategy for new ideas that we can develop and sell

Financial

• Drive for year over year growth of the Spacecraft group as a leading source of revenue and profit for the company
• Define, manage, and control the overall Spacecraft budget for both internally and externally funded programs along with facility maintenance and growth
• Lead the development of strategic partnerships to drive down mission costs

Operational

• Drive for commonality across Spacecraft programs and partner with the VP of Launch Vehicles for collaborative program management tools, methods, and execution techniques
• Manage the ownership, maintenance and usage of the Spacecraft Facility to its full potential
• Fulltime onsite support is required with extensive travel up to 30% on average per year

QUALIFICATIONS

Required

• BS in Engineering or related discipline with a minimum of 15 years of aerospace R&D, Production, and Operations experience
• Experience leading and winning large government proposals and working on large commercial contracts totaling over $100M
• Experience with the full lifecycle of multiple space missions in active roles
• Experience with industry standards for qualification, acceptance testing, and quality programs that influence mission success.
• Demonstrated success working in a constantly evolving and high pace environment
• Seasoned in leading lean teams to accomplish extremely difficult, novel tasks
• Active and productive relationships with senior people at NASA, NRO, or USSF
• A strong Systems Engineering understanding of spacecraft
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Proven experience leading interdisciplinary engineering teams of all skill levels

Desired

• MS in engineering or MBA
• Experience with leading and winning large government proposals valued at over $100M
• Active productive relationships with senior people at NASA JPL, NASA JSC, NASA GSFC, NRO, and USSF/SSC
• Experience in sub-contract management
• Experience in supply chain management
• Experience in propulsion production
• Experience in IC production / supply
• Experience with NASA JSC / Artemis
• Experience in risk management

Firefly offers outstanding benefits for our employees, including generous health, dental and vision plans with low plan deductibles, parental leave, educational reimbursement, short term disability, and flexible PTO options.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Firefly is governed based on merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status