Ground Systems Manager

We're Hiring: Ground Systems Manager

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a globally focused organization developing and operating advanced aerospace and space systems across diverse missions and environments. Our teams combine systems engineering, spacecraft operations, ground infrastructure, software, communications, cybersecurity, mission control, and program management expertise to deliver reliable end-to-end mission capabilities.

We work across engineering, operations, launch services, satellite programs, payload teams, software, networks, security, suppliers, and external mission partners to ensure seamless communication and control between space assets and ground-based infrastructure.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Ground Systems Manager to lead the architecture, development, integration, testing, deployment, operation, and lifecycle management of ground systems supporting spacecraft, satellites, launch vehicles, and mission operations.

The ideal candidate will manage mission-control infrastructure, ground stations, telemetry, tracking and command systems, communications networks, data-processing platforms, operational software, interfaces, cybersecurity, and ground-support infrastructure while ensuring high availability, performance, security, and mission readiness.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement ground systems strategies, architectures, standards, roadmaps, and lifecycle plans.
• Lead the design and development of ground systems supporting satellite and spacecraft missions.
• Define functional, technical, operational, performance, availability, security, and interface requirements.
• Manage ground-system architecture across mission control, ground stations, communications, data processing, networks, and operational applications.
• Coordinate ground systems with spacecraft, payload, launch vehicle, and mission operations architectures.
• Manage telemetry, tracking, command, mission planning, scheduling, and spacecraft-control capabilities.
• Oversee ground station infrastructure including antennas, RF equipment, modems, receivers, transmitters, amplifiers, tracking systems, and related equipment.
• Manage command and control systems supporting spacecraft operations and mission execution.
• Coordinate RF, optical, fiber, satellite communications, terrestrial networks, and other applicable communications infrastructure.
• Establish end-to-end data flows from spacecraft and payloads through ground stations, processing systems, mission control, and user applications.
• Manage telemetry acquisition, decoding, processing, archiving, visualization, and distribution.
• Oversee command generation, validation, authorization, transmission, execution monitoring, and command history.
• Establish ground-system interface control requirements and maintain interface documentation.
• Coordinate interfaces between ground systems, spacecraft avionics, payloads, software, networks, and external mission systems.
• Lead ground-system development, integration, verification, validation, and acceptance activities.
• Develop integration and test strategies covering hardware, software, networks, communications, and operational procedures.
• Coordinate factory acceptance testing, site acceptance testing, system integration testing, operational testing, and mission-readiness testing.
• Establish verification matrices and ensure requirements are demonstrated through appropriate analysis, inspection, demonstration, or testing.
• Lead anomaly investigation, troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, corrective actions, and system recovery.
• Monitor ground-system performance, availability, latency, throughput, reliability, and operational health.
• Establish preventive and corrective maintenance programs for critical ground infrastructure.
• Coordinate upgrades, patches, configuration changes, hardware replacements, and technology refresh activities.
• Manage ground-system configuration, version control, baseline management, and change control.
• Establish operational procedures, checklists, contingency procedures, recovery plans, and maintenance documentation.
• Coordinate mission simulations, rehearsals, operational readiness exercises, and launch or commissioning activities.
• Support spacecraft launch, early-orbit operations, commissioning, routine operations, anomaly response, and end-of-life activities.
• Coordinate with mission operations teams to ensure ground systems meet operational requirements and support mission timelines.
• Establish ground-station scheduling, antenna allocation, contact planning, and resource-management processes.
• Optimize ground-station utilization, communications capacity, network resources, and operational availability.
• Manage ground-system data storage, processing, archiving, backup, and retrieval capabilities.
• Establish appropriate data integrity, synchronization, timekeeping, and operational logging requirements.
• Coordinate ground systems with cloud infrastructure, data centers, edge computing, and distributed processing platforms where applicable.
• Ensure cybersecurity controls are incorporated throughout ground-system architecture, development, deployment, and operations.
• Establish access controls, authentication, authorization, network segmentation, monitoring, vulnerability management, and incident-response requirements.

Key Performance Indicators

• Ground-system availability
• Mission-control system uptime
• Ground-station availability
• Communications link availability
• Telemetry acquisition success rate
• Command execution success rate
• Tracking accuracy
• Contact success rate
• Ground contact completion
• Data throughput
• Data latency
• Telemetry processing accuracy
• Command processing latency
• System response time
• Network availability
• Critical system redundancy performance
• Failover success rate
• Mean time between failures
• Mean time to repair
• Ground-system incident rate
• Recurring anomaly rate
• Incident response time
• Incident resolution time
• Preventive maintenance completion
• Software and hardware update compliance
• Configuration-management accuracy
• Change-control compliance
• Test completion rate
• Verification and validation performance
• Mission-readiness assessment completion
• Launch and commissioning readiness
• Ground-system cybersecurity compliance
• Vulnerability remediation time
• Security incident rate
• Backup and recovery success rate
• Disaster-recovery test performance
• Ground-station utilization
• Network capacity utilization
• Infrastructure capacity utilization
• Operational procedure compliance
• Supplier SLA performance
• Technical support response time
• Project schedule performance
• Ground-system project budget adherence
• Lifecycle cost performance
• Automation adoption
• Operational efficiency improvement
• Continuous-improvement savings

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in ground systems engineering, satellite ground systems, spacecraft operations, mission control, ground stations, aerospace communications, systems integration, or space mission operations, preferably within satellite operators, spacecraft manufacturers, launch organizations, aerospace technology companies, defense environments, or space agencies.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Proven experience managing complex aerospace or space ground systems.
• Strong understanding of spacecraft ground segments and end-to-end mission architectures.
• Experience with telemetry, tracking, command, mission planning, scheduling, and mission-control systems.
• Strong knowledge of ground-station infrastructure, RF communications, antennas, modems, receivers, transmitters, and network systems.
• Experience integrating ground systems with spacecraft, payloads, launch vehicles, and external mission systems.
• Strong systems-engineering knowledge covering requirements, interfaces, architecture, verification, validation, and lifecycle management.
• Experience leading ground-system integration, testing, commissioning, and operational readiness activities.
• Strong understanding of spacecraft operations and mission-control processes.
• Experience managing operational anomalies, troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions.
• Knowledge of distributed networks, cloud infrastructure, data processing, databases, and operational software.
• Strong understanding of cybersecurity, access control, network security, vulnerability management, and resilient system architecture.
• Experience developing redundancy, failover, backup, disaster-recovery, and business-continuity capabilities.
• Familiarity with software-defined ground systems, automation, AI-enabled operations, and modern mission-control technologies.