---
title: 'Forward Deployed Engineer at Northwood Space'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-northwood-space-washington-s22w8yjqxt9x'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Forward Deployed Engineer at Northwood Space

- **Company:** Northwood Space
- **Location:** Washington, DC
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-07-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/northwoodspace/d0589c2d-0fb5-4463-b479-260ff3e1447f

## Job description

Northwood is a modern space infrastructure company bringing the benefits of space to the masses through advanced communications technology. We are building a global network of phased array ground stations that enable real-time, reliable communication for satellite missions such as national security, global connectivity, and disaster response. With a vertically integrated approach, Northwood designs, builds, and rapidly deploys scalable systems that power the next generation of space missions. If you like solving complex challenges and seeing your work deployed around the world with real impact, Northwood is the place to do it.

Forward Deployed Engineer: Mission Architects help customers adopt and succeed on Northwood's ground station network. You'll work with satellite operators to understand their missions, shape requirements, and guide them from first conversation through deployment and beyond. You'll partner closely with Business Development, Engineering, and Program Management throughout. This role suits a technically credible operator who can build trust with satellite customers, spot opportunities, and turn mission needs into clear priorities for our internal teams.

Responsibilities:

- Make customer missions succeed on Northwood's network.
- Serve as the primary technical contact for customers during capture, evaluation, onboarding, and post-deployment.
- Get hands-on with implementation and integration — working directly alongside customers and Engineering to bring up, troubleshoot, and validate their operations on the network.
- Ship code, debug integrations, and validate operations alongside customers and Engineering
- 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.
- 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.

Basic Qualifications:

- 7+ 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%.

Preferred Qualifications:

- 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.

Additional Requirements:

- This position requires successfully obtaining and maintaining a Top Secret Security Clearance as a condition of employment. While the clearance may not be immediately necessary upon hire, we encourage you to initiate the application process promptly upon accepting this offer. Your ability to secure the necessary clearance is essential for fulfilling key responsibilities of the role. Should you be unable to obtain it, Northwood Space reserves the right to modify or terminate your employment to align with optional needs.
- Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed
- This role requires being on-site 5 days per week

Additional Information: If you need a reasonable accommodation as part of your application for employment or interviews with us, please let us know.

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.

Northwood Space is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Northwood Space is governed on the basis of 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.

## About Northwood Space

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Building a global ground network for the future of space communications — delivering vertically integrated hardware, software, and shared infrastructure that lets space missions go from concept to live data delivery in months instead of years.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B, raised $100M in January 2026)
- **Headquarters**: Los Angeles, California, United States (additional offices in Torrance, CA; Washington, D.C.; with presence in the United Kingdom and India)
- **Founded**: 2022
- **Founders**: Bridgit Mendler (CEO, Cofounder), Griffin Cleverly (Co-Founder, CTO), Shaurya Luthra (Co-Founder, Head of Digital)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Defense and Space Manufacturing; Space-to-ground infrastructure; Satellite communications.
- **Target customers**: B2B and B2G — commercial satellite operators, government agencies (e.g., U.S. Space Force), and defense customers.
- **Mission**: “Take space missions further, faster” by building resilient, cloud-like ground infrastructure for the next century of space operations.

## Products & Services
- **Hardware (Antennas built for scale)** : Phased-array antenna systems designed for volume manufacturing and rapid deployment (hours, not months).
- **Network (Shared infrastructure)** : A horizontally scalable, dynamic capacity provisioning network that eliminates single points of failure and works across multiple orbits and frequency bands.
- **Software (Orchestration intelligence)** : The intelligence layer that schedules contacts, routes data, and manages the entire ground network — enabling on-demand capacity without traditional procurement cycles.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Key Metric**: Total funding raised — **$136.4M** across four rounds (Grant $100K in 2023, Seed $6.3M in 2024, Series A $30M in 2025, Series B $100M in 2026).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz (led Seed, Series A, and Series B), Founders Fund (Seed), Washington Harbour Partners (led Series B and a prior round). Strategic partners include government agencies and commercial launch providers.
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount grew **117.6% YoY** to 65 employees (as of mid-2026).
  - 48 active job postings (+140% YoY increase).
  - Successfully tested next-generation phased array antennas.
  - Won a U.S. Space Force contract (mentioned in news snippets).
  - Expanded to three U.S. offices and international presence (UK, India).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Vertically integrated ground stack** — from antenna hardware to network orchestration software — collapses deployment timelines from years to months/days.
- **Hardware that deploys in hours** and scales like cloud computing, avoiding traditional multi-year procurement cycles.
- **Resilient, shared infrastructure** designed for multiple orbits and frequency bands, reducing single points of failure.
- **Strong talent pipeline** from SpaceX, Anduril, Tesla, Palantir, and other top aerospace/defense firms.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale the global ground network** by deploying more sites and increasing capacity for both government and commercial customers.
- **Volume manufacturing** of antenna systems to meet surging demand.
- **Deepen partnerships** with defense and intelligence agencies (National Security Space) and commercial satellite operators.
- **Continue hiring aggressively** across engineering, operations, site management, and business development.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Values include humility, bias to action, autonomy, and exceptionalism. Teams are trusted to own their work and make decisions.
- **Impact**: Work is deployed globally — antennas built in Torrance, software orchestrated from LA, sites stood up worldwide.
- **Benefits**: Competitive salary, meaningful equity, comprehensive medical/dental/vision, employer-sponsored 401(k), paid parental leave, commuter benefits, sponsored clubs and quarterly events.
- **Work Model**: Likely on-site for hardware roles (Torrance, El Segundo, Washington D.C.); some software roles may offer flexibility. Two main office hubs: Los Angeles (HQ) and Washington D.C.
- **Engineering culture**: Fast iteration, real-world deployment, cross-functional collaboration. “If you like building quickly and seeing your work deployed in locations around the globe, we want you at Northwood.”

## Sources
1. [northwoodspace.io](https://www.northwoodspace.io/)
2. [northwoodspace.io/about-us](https://www.northwoodspace.io/about-us)
3. [northwoodspace.io/careers](https://www.northwoodspace.io/careers)
4. [LinkedIn – Northwood](https://www.linkedin.com/company/northwood-space)
5. [Crunchbase – Northwood Space](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/northwood-space)

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