Mission Architect

Responsibilities

• Make customer missions succeed on Northwood's network.
• Serve as the primary technical contact for customers during capture, evaluation, onboarding, and post-deployment.
• Support Business Development on qualification, proposals, and expansion.
• Lead technical discovery, exchanges, demos, and readiness reviews alongside Program Management.
• Learn each customer's mission, workflows, constraints, decision criteria, and success metrics in depth.
• Translate customer needs into clear priorities for Engineering, Product, and BD.
• Get hands-on with implementation and integration — working directly alongside customers and Engineering to bring up, troubleshoot, and validate their operations on the network.
• Surface friction points, adoption blockers, and recurring needs that should shape the product and network.
• Coordinate onboarding and deployment readiness — clarifying requirements, flagging risks, and aligning internal teams around customer objectives.
• Build reusable discovery frameworks and customer-facing materials that help Northwood scale capture and customer success.

Requirements

• 5+ years in customer-facing technical roles: solutions or systems engineering, mission operations, technical business development, capture engineering, solutions architecture, or TAM.
• Bachelor's in EE, CE, CS, Aerospace, or related field — or equivalent experience with mission systems, ground systems, networking, cloud, or satellite operations.
• Track record taking complex customer engagements from discovery through deployment or expansion.
• Proven ability to build trust with technical customers and turn ambiguous mission needs into concrete priorities.
• Comfortable working in ambiguous environments spanning hardware, software, networking, and business objectives.
• Strong communicator — able to lead technical conversations, write clear customer materials, and brief internal stakeholders.
• Effective across BD, Engineering, Product, Program Management, and customer teams.
• Willing to travel up to 30%.

Nice-to-Haves

• Background in satellite communications, RF, space operations, ground stations, or telecom infrastructure.
• Experience with proposals, technical evaluations, demos, pilots, or proof-of-concept work.
• Experience managing technical relationships in mission-critical environments.
• Familiarity with APIs, networking protocols, telemetry, scheduling systems, cloud infrastructure, or mission assurance.
• Ability to obtain or hold TS/SCI clearance.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base salary determined case-by-case based on job-related knowledge, skills, education, and experience.
• Eligible for equity in the form of stock options or other long-term incentives, and potential performance bonuses.
• Comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage.
• 401(k) retirement plan.
• Short- and long-term disability insurance, life insurance.
• Paid parental leave, generous paid time off, and various other perks and discounts.