Technical Director – Space Domain Awareness (U.S.) 

Location: United States (DC area preferred)
Employment Type: Full-time or Contractor
Citizenship / Clearance: U.S. Citizen; active or eligible TS/SCI strongly preferred

Role Overview

NorthStar is seeking a Technical Director for Space Domain Awareness (SDA) to serve as the firm’s technical authority supporting U.S. government customers, programs, and partners.

This is a hands-on technical role. You will help shape SDA system concepts and technical direction to ensure our solutions align with real mission needs and operational constraints, and help the company communicate what is feasible, defensible, and executable.

You will lead the technical strategy behind customer pitches and proposals, working alongside business development, executives, and subject-matter experts to present SDA solutions that are compelling, technically sound, and executable in support of successful contract outcomes.

This role operates as the firm’s technical authority for U.S. customer engagements, providing guidance within established enterprise governance, capture approval, and compliance processes. Beyond current SDA missions, you will help identify future applications and follow-on capabilities.

What You Will Do

NorthStar’s U.S. Technical Authority

• Act as a technical authority for U.S. customer engagements on Space Domain Awareness (SDA), including sensing, multi-source data fusion, orbit determination, analytics, and operational concepts.
• Provide technical credibility in customer discussions and capability assessments.
• Act as a key interface between U.S. market needs and NorthStar’s global technical organization.
• Participate in technical briefings, demonstrations, design reviews, and oral presentations as a technical authority.
• Ensure all technical representations are accurate, defensible, and aligned with real system performance.

NorthStar’s U.S. Engineering Lead

• Use direct customer engagement to capture mission pain points, emerging use cases, operational gaps, and evolving priorities in a structured way.
• Assess and document customer objectives, mission needs, operational constraints, and required deliverables.
• Translate customer needs into mission concepts, use cases, system requirements, and measurable technical and performance objectives.
• Help shape system-level architectures, concepts of operations (CONOPS), performance models, and technical approaches for U.S. government applications.
• Make and communicate technical trade-offs involving latency, coverage, accuracy, timeliness, resilience, scalability, and operational utility.
• Work with engineers and scientists to refine architectures, CONOPS, system requirements, and performance claims.
• Collaborate with Product and R&D leadership to align U.S. mission needs with NorthStar’s technology roadmap.

Support Business Development and Capture

• Support technical sections of proposals, white papers, RFIs/RFPs, and evaluations.
• Advise on IRAD priorities based on customer gaps, emerging needs, competitive dynamics, and observed operational constraints.
• Support the transition of R&D capabilities into operational, customer-ready services.
• Translate SDA capabilities into future service concepts and derivative offerings grounded in technical feasibility and mission relevance, including how near-real-time SDA enables new mission applications and downstream services.
• Evolve SDA architectures with a focus on reuse and value across multiple missions.
• Identify and frame technical spinoff opportunities and assess how design choices enable or limit future uses.

How You Will Work

• This is a technical subject matter expert role, not a people-management or delivery-ownership position.
• Success is measured by technical credibility, judgment, clarity, and impact.
• You will partner closely with business development, product, and program teams to guide technical direction in support of U.S. customer engagements.
• You should be comfortable engaging in detailed technical discussions with demanding U.S. government customers.
• Ability to work in a startup/scale-up environment with rapidly evolving priorities and high execution demands.

Technical Governance & Risk

• Identify technical risks early and propose mitigation strategies.
• Ensure technical claims made to customers are achievable, measurable, and aligned with delivery realities.
• Support compliance with applicable technical, security, and regulatory requirements for U.S. government programs.

Required Qualifications

• Advanced background in space systems, orbital mechanics, SDA/SSA, or mission operations.
• Demonstrated experience designing, analyzing, or operating SDA systems.
• Ability to clearly communicate complex technical concepts to U.S. government technical audiences.
• Experience contributing to technical proposals, system designs, or government programs.
• Strong understanding of SDA challenges including sensor limitations, latency, data fusion, and operational constraints.
• 10+ years’ experience in national security space or related technical domains.
• U.S. citizenship; active or eligible TS/SCI clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting DoD or Intelligence Community SDA programs.
• Hands-on experience with sensor systems, orbit determination, and data processing pipelines.
• Experience transitioning technology from R&D to operational use.
• Familiarity with commercial–government hybrid SDA models.

How This Role Fits at NorthStar

You will work closely with:

• Director of Business Development / senior executives (commercialization and capture support)
• Product and R&D leadership
• Program and operations teams

This role ensures NorthStar’s U.S. engagements are technically sound, mission-relevant, grounded in real operations, and executable.

About NorthStar

NorthStar is a global leader in space-based data and analytics, specializing in Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Domain Awareness (SDA). NorthStar uses multiple sensor data sources to create information services tailored to government and industry needs.

Its development portfolio includes orbital dynamics and machine learning algorithms supporting SDA applications, including space traffic management (STM). NorthStar operates a 24/7 SDA/STM data processing infrastructure and deploys a global team of experts to deliver anomaly detection and characterization services across time zones.

With headquarters in Montreal, a European HQ in Luxembourg, and a wholly owned subsidiary in McLean, Virginia, NorthStar is advancing space surveillance capabilities that support the safety, sustainability, and security of space operations worldwide. Its mission is to empower humanity to preserve our planet.