---
title: 'Lead Product Design Engineer at Northwood Space'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/lead-product-design-engineer-northwood-space-torrance-94ymkp60keq2'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Lead Product Design Engineer at Northwood Space

- **Company:** Northwood Space
- **Location:** Torrance, CA
- **Compensation:** $100k–$200k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-08-06
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/northwoodspace/cc20d57d-ade6-4c27-9ba2-31954234d245

## 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.

Role: As a Lead Product Design Engineer, you will lead the development of Northwood’s antenna systems from early architecture through design, integration, manufacturing, and deployment. You will own the execution of multidisciplinary antenna products that combine mechanical structures, RF hardware, electronics, embedded systems, thermal management, manufacturing, and test. This role is for a deeply technical engineer who can operate as both a senior individual contributor and a cross-functional product lead. You will apply strong expertise in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, RF hardware, embedded systems, or a related discipline while developing the system-level understanding needed to drive the complete antenna product. You will translate product and mission objectives into clear requirements, technical plans, schedules, interfaces, and verification strategies. You will organize teams around the most important engineering problems, identify risks and dependencies early, and drive products through design reviews, prototype builds, testing, production, and field deployment.

Responsibilities:

- Own the technical development and execution of a Northwood antenna system or major subsystem from concept through production and deployment.
- Translate product, customer, and mission needs into system requirements, architectures, interfaces, performance budgets, and verification plans.
- Coordinate development across mechanical, electrical, RF, antenna, embedded software, thermal, manufacturing, test, supply chain, and field operations.
- Build and manage development schedules, technical milestones, critical-path dependencies, and risk-mitigation plans.
- Lead system-level trade studies across antenna performance, structural design, power, thermal behavior, reliability, manufacturability, cost, and deployment speed.
- Drive prototype builds, system integration, test campaigns, root-cause investigations, and production-readiness reviews.
- Contribute directly to design, analysis, prototyping, testing, and troubleshooting within your primary engineering discipline.
- Provide clear updates to engineering leadership on progress, risks, decisions, and resource needs.

Basic Qualifications:

- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, RF Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- 3+ years of experience developing complex hardware, antenna systems, RF products, aerospace systems, or similarly multidisciplinary technology.
- Deep individual-contributor expertise in at least one relevant engineering discipline, such as mechanical design, electrical hardware, RF hardware, antenna engineering, embedded systems, or systems integration.
- Demonstrated experience owning a complex hardware product or subsystem through design, prototyping, integration, testing, and delivery.
- Strong systems-thinking ability and experience managing technical interfaces and tradeoffs across multiple engineering disciplines.
- Experience turning ambiguous product objectives into requirements, development plans, schedules, and test strategies.
- Hands-on experience building, integrating, testing, and troubleshooting physical hardware systems.
- Strong organization, communication, and cross-functional leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

- Experience developing phased-array antennas, ground station antennas, satellite communications systems, radar systems, or other complex RF hardware.
- Experience with antenna structures, RF enclosures, electronics packaging, thermal management, environmental sealing, cable routing, or electromechanical integration.
- Familiarity with antenna elements, amplifiers, filters, frequency converters, beamforming electronics, calibration systems, and RF distribution networks.
- Experience taking a hardware product from early architecture through qualification, production, installation, and field operation.
- Experience with environmental testing, design for manufacturing, supplier management, and production-readiness processes.
- Track record of resolving complex integration issues across mechanical, electrical, RF, embedded, and software boundaries.

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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