About Canada Rocket Company

Canada Rocket Company is developing Canada's first medium-lift launch vehicle. 

We are a team of veterans from SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, ArianeGroup, Pangea Propulsion, Tesla, and MDA, bringing over a century of combined launch and space systems experience back to Canada. 

Our mission is to provide reliable, independent access to space for Canada and its allies in a rapidly expanding global market. 

Our approach is defined by pragmatic engineering: 

• We utilize a single 700 kN engine that scales from light- to medium-lift via engine clustering. 

• We lean on simple, proven technologies to reach orbit faster, avoiding the pitfalls of complex or novel designs. 

• We test early and often, catching problems on the bench instead of at the pad. 

Backed by $20M in funding secured within our first four months, including the largest all-Canadian seed round in the sector and an $8.3M Department of National Defence grant, we are moving with the speed and institutional backing required to meet Canada’s orbital launch needs.

About the role

Canada Rocket Company is building sovereign launch capability for Canada. As our first Avionics Hardware Test Engineer, you will own the test infrastructure that brings up, validates, and qualifies flight avionics for R1, our light-lift launch vehicle, and scale that infrastructure through successive vehicles as CRC grows. Test is the last line of defense before flight hardware leaves the lab, and you will build the systems that catch defects, exercise failure modes, and verify performance before launch.

This is a senior, hands-on foundational role. You will design custom test hardware, build the HITL testbed, and write the automation that exercises flight avionics across their full operating envelope. You will set the standards, build the processes, and deliver the test infrastructure that gates flight hardware. As the team expands, you will help hire and shape the test engineering team around you.

What you'll do

• Define test architectures for flight avionics, including in-house electronics, sensors, power distribution, RF systems, and electro-mechanical hardware

• Design and/or procure hardware and PCBAs to measure signals, apply flight-like loads, and power units under test

• Write automation software in Python to interact with units under test, test equipment, instrumentation, and production documentation systems

• Develop and maintain CRC's Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) testbed for integrated avionics, flight software, and vehicle simulation testing

• Execute full lifecycle development of test systems, including requirements capture, fixture and PCBA design, automation software, environmental testing, and production handoff

• Bring up new flight avionics as it arrives from manufacturing, characterize performance against requirements, and root-cause defects with the responsible design engineers

• Build the test processes, automation frameworks, and documentation standards that scale with the team

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a related engineering discipline

• 4+ years of experience in test engineering, electronic hardware development, or electronics bring-up

• Proven experience building test systems from concept through production, including both hardware fixtures and automation software

• Programming experience in Python, with working knowledge of object-oriented design

• Hands-on familiarity with lab instrumentation including oscilloscopes, digital multimeters, data acquisition systems, signal generators, and measurement techniques to verify and validate product electronic requirements

Preferred

• Passion for spaceflight and curiosity for electronics in high-reliability applications

• Experience designing, building, or operating HITL testbeds, including real-time simulation and closed-loop testing of flight control hardware

• Experience with circuit board layout, schematic capture, and PCBA bring-up

• Working knowledge of communication interfaces common to flight avionics: CAN, RS-422, Ethernet, SPI, I2C, and LVDS

• Experience with RF test equipment including spectrum analyzers, vector network analyzers, and signal generators 

• Understanding of metrology, measurement uncertainty, and analog signal conditioning

• Experience in environmental testing such as vibration, shock, thermal, thermal vacuum, and EMI/EMC, as well as familiarity with relevant standards

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to create formal test plans and reports for internal and external use

• Demonstrated ability to thrive in fast-paced and autonomous project environments

• Experience in launch vehicle, spacecraft, aviation, or other safety-critical hardware programs