Director Ground Systems

Director Ground Systems

Isar Aerospace

Ottobrunn, Germany

Mission Brief

As Director Ground Systems you will lead a team responsible for providing the ground system products that enable flight at Isar Aerospace. You will lead and oversee infrastructure development projects of different scales and work closely together with colleagues from operations and development to provide safe, reliable, economic and flexible flight-enabling systems.

Your Role in Our Space Mission:

• Lead, coach and develop managers and engineers across the department and foster a culture of accountability, technical excellence and continuous improvement in the department;
• Lead and scale teams for process facility design and control systems to build large-scale infrastructure such as launch bases, stage test rigs and rocket propulsion test stands from scratch;
• Plan, initiate and steer ongoing ground system product development, establishment, facility upgrade and modification projects based on requests arising from Launch Vehicle developments, operational learnings, scaling needs of the company and in close collaboration with the project managers;
• Bring projects from idea to approval by informing C-level and board decisions with up-front planning in budget, timeline and feasibility;
• Hold responsibility for compliance and safety of facilities and setups handed over to operations- and test teams;
• Support development departments with expertise and feedback to enable them to find the best way forward in the sense of the company in propulsion-, propellant- or cryogenic testing;
• Support operating teams with standards for change-documentation, calculation methods, ad-hoc engineering, design reviews, and operational support.

Qualification Checklist

• Bachelor or Master of Mechanical/Chemical/Electrical/Civil/Aerospace Engineering or similar;
• More than 5 years of experience in leading development teams and executing complex infrastructure projects;
• Advanced know-how about Project Management in process facilities/civil engineering or similar;
• Basic understanding of Compliance, Safety and Certification in process plants;
• Demonstrated understanding of building and scaling teams;
• Hands-on experience in plant operation or safety-critical research;
• Outstanding communication and organisational skills;
• High degree of autonomy paired with a can-do attitude;
• Fluent in English (C1).

Bonus Skills

• Experience in launcher ground infrastructure development, building and operations.