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Salary: USD 151,305 - 393,435 / annual
STOKE Space is building Nova, a fully reusable launch vehicle designed for daily flight to radically lower launch costs and increase flight cadence. This role is part of a new organization within Stoke focused on developing products over a 3–10 year horizon that extend beyond launch: spacecraft, on-orbit mobility, downmass systems, and orbital infrastructure.
As In-Space Propulsion Lead, you own in-space propulsion architecture and execution for all products this group develops. You will define propulsion architectures across the full spectrum—storable and cryogenic chemical systems, electric propulsion, and hybrid approaches. You lead build-versus-acquire-versus-partner decisions with rigorous supplier and acquisition diligence, then carry selected systems through design, qualification, and flight. You take extreme ownership over design, analysis, manufacturing, test, and validation, and you will help grow a propulsion capability that serves the broader portfolio.
Key responsibilities include:
- Define propulsion architecture: thrust, specific impulse, mass trades, propellant selection, feed system approach, dwell, and refuelability
- Lead make-or-buy decisions with technical and production diligence on suppliers and acquisition targets, cost/schedule modeling, and leadership recommendations
- Own design, analysis, manufacturing plans, test plans, and qualification of thrusters, feed systems, tanks, and pressurization
- Own propellant management over mission life: thermal control, pressurization, leakage, and propellant budgets
- Establish propulsion test capability from component to system-level hot fire, leveraging existing Stoke infrastructure and specifying new capability as needed
- Provide propulsion inputs to mission design and vehicle architecture trades
- Lead root-cause investigations, risk mitigation, schedules, and budgets for propulsion development
- Help grow the propulsion team as products mature
The organization is small by design; everyone carries a second hat. You must be ready to stay focused, move fast, self-direct, and learn on the fly.
REQUIREMENTS:
Minimum qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical, aerospace, or chemical engineering, physics, or related field
- 10+ years of propulsion experience, including in-space propulsion flight hardware you were accountable for from design through qualification and flight
- Hands-on experience with at least one class of in-space propulsion (chemical or electric) carried through qualification, and working knowledge of others
- Experience leading a propulsion team or program with accountability for technical output, schedule, and budget
- Strong fundamentals in combustion, heat transfer, fluid flow, and pressurization and propellant management systems
- Experience owning test campaigns from test plans through hot fire and anomaly resolution
- Demonstrated ability to make rapid, well-reasoned propulsion architecture decisions with incomplete information
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to lead and to follow
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience across multiple propulsion classes or thrust regimes (high-thrust chemical, electric, multi-mode combinations)
- Propulsion for long-duration spacecraft (GEO, cislunar, multi-year LEO) where propellant management drove design
- Experience with refueling interfaces, propellant transfer, or depot concepts
- Experience building and managing a propulsion engineering team, including hiring and standing up test and manufacturing capability
- Master's degree or PhD in aerospace or mechanical engineering or related field
ITAR Requirements: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident (Green Card holder), or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).
