Founding Rover Systems Engineer

About us

Lynx Exploration is building Lynx, a lunar rover designed for direct-to-surface landing, prospecting, and resource exploitation. We're founded by Richard Lynch, a 36-year aerospace mission systems engineer whose background includes the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA's Mars Sample Return program. We're pre-Phase A and seed-stage right now, targeting SRR in June 2027, PDR in December 2027, CDR in December 2028, and launch in June 2030.

This is a hands-on, cross-disciplinary systems role. You'll help mature our technical baseline across power, avionics, rf and laser communication, guidance and controls, mechanical, propulsion, software, and thermal ahead of funding, working directly with the founder to shape real requirements and real hardware decisions. As the team grows after funding closes, this role is likely to grow into ownership of one or more of these subsystem areas.

What you'll actually be doing:

·       Developing mission and subsystem-level requirements and designs from the ground up

·       Deciding what hardware can be bought as-is versus what needs to be designed or modified versus built inhouse

·       Building and running real tests, writing the assembly, integration and test plans and procedures, test reports that go with them

·       Getting hands-on with real hardware, from early concept work through flight

Show us real engineering work you've done: code, schematics, CAD, test data, guidance navigation and control, mechanical, propulsion, ciruit design, link budget and thermal analysis, build logs, published papers, design project writeups from a project you're proud of. Or show us the closest thing to that you can create to it. The more details you can give us the better. 

We especially love candidates who've competed in hands-on engineering competitions, robotics challenges, design-build-fly, Formula SAE or Baja, rocketry, and especially NASA's Robotic Mining Competition (Lunabotics). But any real, demonstrable project counts, competition or not.

Background: electrical, guidance navigation and control, mechanical, aerospace, thermal, mechatronics, robotics, physics, or equivalent hands-on experience.

This is a founding equity position. We're an unfunded, pre-seed-stage program right now, and cash compensation begins once funding closes, targeted for end of March 2027. If that timeline doesn't work for your situation, this probably isn't the right fit yet, and that's completely fine.

If it does work, this is a rare shot to help build a company and a rover from concept through launch on the moon.

Apply through https://app.realengineers.ai/j/founding-rover-systems-engineer-6173. 
Upload your real project work rather than a resume, we'll take it from there.