Chief Engineer, Vehicle

Chief Engineer, Vehicle

Location: Playa Vista, California (in-person, five days per week)

About Outpost

The return lane isn’t going to build itself. Come build it with us. Outpost is an orbital logistics company rewriting the rules of global logistics by building reusable Earth-return vehicles that unlock in-space manufacturing, on-orbit warehousing, and 60-minute global delivery through space. Our CarryAll vehicle family returns payloads ranging from 200 kilograms to 10 metric tons, lands within 10 meters of its target, and can then be refurbished and launched again. One vehicle, many missions: responsive logistics and precision delivery for national security; commercial cargo moved with real cadence; R&D payloads flown, tested, and refined across repeatable cycles; and critical aid delivered where roads and runways can’t reach. The demand is already here, validated through defense and civil agreements and supported by a growing pipeline of government and commercial customers. We have the customers, the team, and a clear technical path ahead of us. We’re building the return lane. Come build it with us.

The Role

The Chief Engineer, Vehicle will own the vision, execution, and culture behind Outpost’s vehicle portfolio, including the Carryall orbital return vehicle and the Airdrop atmospheric precision delivery system, and is accountable for bringing both to operational status at scale. Reporting to the CTO, you will work side by side with our VP of Engineering, Product, VP of Engineering, Production and VP of Engineering, Software. This is a rare opportunity to take real ownership at a company with strong momentum. You will be the top day-to-day technical authority across every vehicle at Outpost, making the key architectural decisions that shape performance, schedule, and cost, while building the processes and culture that will define how Outpost designs, builds, tests, and operates vehicles as the company scales. At the center of it all is a bigger mission: changing the future of space exologistics by building the return lane from space. This role offers the chance to help create the infrastructure that will move materials reliably from orbit back to Earth, and to help shape both the vehicles and the organization making that future possible.

Responsibilities

• Full accountability for schedule, technical performance, and budget across Carryall and Airdrop; call the hard scope, risks schedule and make/buy trade-offs.
• Hire, develop, and manage engineering leaders across all vehicle disciplines; set the standard for technical excellence, ownership, and pace.
• Own architecture implementation, interface control, and performance envelopes; enforce design standards, margin policy, and flight readiness criteria; chair PDR, CDR, TRR, and CoFR reviews.
• Own Material Review Board / Failure Reporting, Analysis, and Corrective Action System rigor, oversight of test planning and execution.
• Establish DFM, QMS, configuration management, and acceptance criteria to move Carryall and Airdrop from development into LRIP and fleet-scale production. <li data-leveltext="" data-font="Symbol" data-listid="14" data-list-defn-props="{"335552541":1,"335559685":720,"335559991":360,"4