How to land Northwood Space jobs after the $375M raise

What did Northwood Space just raise, and why does it matter for hiring?

Northwood Space closed a $375 million Series C on November 2, 2026, at a valuation of about $2 billion, and the company has named hiring as one of the main uses for the money. Andreessen Horowitz and DFJ Growth co-led the round. In-Q-Tel, Alpine Space Ventures, Washington Harbour Partners, StepStone and others also took part. Northwood was founded in 2022 and is based in Torrance, California. It builds the ground side of the space economy: Portal phased-array antennas, Prism high-throughput dishes, and the automated scheduling software that books satellite passes across its network. The raise comes less than a year after a $100 million Series B in January and a U.S. Space Force contract worth nearly $50 million to upgrade the country's satellite control network.

When a hardware company says new money will go toward "talent acquisition" and "accelerating delivery on existing contracts," take it literally. Northwood has customers and deadlines. It has government work with milestones attached and a global ground network that isn't finished. Openings at a company like this tend to pile up where the delivery risk sits: building antennas faster, getting new sites live, and writing the software that turns separate dishes and arrays into one network customers can book. The headline is also public, so engineers at big primes, telecom carriers and other space startups read it the same day you did. Expect more applicants for every role over the next few months, and expect screening to get stricter rather than looser.

That's the real reason this matters to your job search. The careers page already lists dozens of roles, mostly in Torrance. They range from DSP and FPGA engineers to ground site specialists, power electronics engineers and software engineers who work on edge control systems and high-bandwidth data pipelines. Each posting uses its own vocabulary. A recruiter screening for a phased-array RF role is looking for different words from one hiring a site engineer who'll pour concrete pads and commission hardware in another country. A generic "aerospace engineer" CV ends up in the middle of the pile. A CV that clearly mirrors one posting gets read first. The rest of this playbook shows you how to build that version.

Which teams is Northwood Space hiring for after the Series C?

Northwood's hiring centres on five groups: RF and antenna systems, digital signal processing and FPGA, embedded and software engineering, manufacturing and hardware test, and ground-site deployment and operations. You can see this in the roles it already advertises: RF and antenna systems engineers, an RF systems architect, senior DSP engineers, FPGA engineers who build networking and DSP pipelines for phased-array ground stations, electrical test engineers, power electronics engineers, forward-deployed engineers and ground site specialists. Mechanical, manufacturing and infrastructure roles fill out the list. Internships run alongside them, including an embedded software internship and a sites internship for summer 2027. Phased arrays need RF people, the signal chain needs DSP and FPGA people, mass production needs manufacturing and test engineers, and every new site needs someone to build it and keep it running.

The fastest-growing group is probably the one people overlook: sites and operations. A ground network is only as big as the number of places it can physically reach. Somebody has to pick each location, sort out permits and power, ship hardware, commission it and fix it when it breaks thousands of miles from Torrance. The ground site specialist posting describes exactly that work: deploying, commissioning, maintaining and repairing ground station hardware at sites around the world. The site engineer role takes a site from first sketch to a live satellite link, with frequent travel. If you've done field work on cell towers, broadcast uplinks or military communications, these roles fit you far better than you might assume.

Software is the other big area, and it isn't standard web work. The software engineer posting covers edge control systems, high-bandwidth data pipelines and an SD-WAN, and says the company will consider candidates from mid-career up to principal level. There's also a new-grad general software track. In practice, that means Python, C++ or Rust working close to hardware, plus scheduling, telemetry and networking. If your background is backend or infrastructure engineering, the ground-station angle is learnable. What you need to show on your CV is that you've built systems that run unattended, handle real-time data and recover from failures without anyone stepping in. Use the table below to decide where your experience fits before you write a single bullet.

What should a space industry resume show to clear Northwood's screening?

A space industry resume that clears Northwood's screening matches the posting's technical terms word for word and backs each one with a number. That means hardware shipped, sites commissioned, throughput achieved or test time saved. Recruiters for hardware roles at fast-moving startups skim for proof that you've built physical things under deadline. Write "designed a 64-element phased-array tile, taking it from schematic to qualified prototype in nine months." Don't write "worked on antenna design." Write "cut FPGA build-to-test cycle from two days to four hours by automating regression benches." Don't write "responsible for FPGA development." The numbers don't need to be huge. They need to be specific, true, and something you can defend in an interview with an engineer who has done the same work.

Keywords come next, and this is where most aerospace engineer CVs fall short. Engineers write the way their old team talked. The posting, though, uses the hiring manager's terms. If the ad asks for "link budget analysis" and your CV says "RF performance modelling," a human might connect the two, but a keyword filter or a rushed recruiter won't. Mirror the exact phrases for tools, frequency bands, protocols and processes, and only where they honestly describe your work. Put your strongest matching terms in a short skills block near the top, then repeat them in context inside your experience bullets. That way the claim has evidence attached instead of sitting in a list nobody trusts.

Before you send anything, test the CV against the specific posting. Paste the Northwood job description next to your CV and see which required skills are missing, how your file scores out of 100 and whether its layout survives automated parsing. Copy the posting text in directly instead of relying on a link, because some job boards block automated fetching. This step catches the gaps you can't see yourself, such as a missing "ITAR" mention, a skills section stuck in a sidebar the parser skips, or dates in a format the system misreads. My firm view is that a plain single-column CV beats a beautifully designed one for hardware startups every time. Nobody hiring an FPGA engineer is grading your typography.

How can telecom, defense and aerospace engineers reposition for space startup jobs in 2026?

Telecom, defense and legacy aerospace engineers get into space startup jobs by translating their experience into ground-station terms. Lead with the overlapping work, such as RF links, signal processing, field deployment and secure systems, and cut the jargon that only makes sense to their former employer. A cellular RF engineer has already done link budgets, interference hunting and tower commissioning. A defense radar engineer has probably built phased arrays and beam-steering software. A satellite operator at a prime has run pass schedules and dealt with anomalies. All of it maps directly onto Northwood's work. The hard part isn't the skills. It's convincing a recruiter in thirty seconds that "5G small-cell rollout" and "ground site commissioning" are related jobs.

Start by rewriting your job titles' context, not the titles themselves. Never invent a title you didn't hold. You can add a one-line descriptor, though: "RF Engineer, Carrier Network Deployment (200+ sites, mmWave and sub-6 GHz)." Then rewrite each bullet so it leads with the transferable action and ends with the result. A defense engineer might write "led integration and test of an X-band phased-array subsystem, closing 40 open anomaly reports before delivery." Cleared candidates should state clearance status in a way their security officer would approve. Plenty of Northwood postings, including the sites internship, ask for ITAR eligibility, so put your citizenship or permanent-residency status where a recruiter can find it in seconds.

The contrarian point is this: don't hide the big-company background. Founders at startups like Northwood often want people who've seen how qualification, documentation and reliability work at scale, because that's exactly what a company with Space Force contracts has to grow into. Present that discipline as speed. Show that you know which processes matter and which ones slow a team down. Cut the parts that suggest you need a forty-person program office around you to function, such as long lists of review boards or committee memberships. Replace them with evidence that you've shipped hardware on short timelines or worked hands-on in a small team. One prototype you built in a garage or a university lab can say more than three bullet points about process compliance.

How should you apply to Northwood Space jobs without wasting your shot?

Apply to one or two Northwood roles that genuinely match your background, tailor a separate CV for each, and try to get a referral before or alongside the application. Don't fire off a generic file at five openings. Hiring teams at a company this size share an applicant tracking system, and recruiters notice when the same person applies for FPGA, test and site roles in one afternoon. It looks like you're unsure what you're good at. Picking well also helps your morale. Two focused applications that each lead to a real conversation are worth more than ten that disappear without a reply. A tight shortlist also gives you time to research each team properly.

Referrals matter more at startups than at big primes because the networks are small and engineers vouch for each other. Look for current Northwood engineers who came from your old employer, your university or your corner of the industry. Send a short, specific message that names the role and one relevant project. Don't ask for a job. Ask a question about the team's work that shows you've done your homework. Once the raise makes headlines, fake recruiters also start using the company's name to fish for personal data. Run a quick fake-recruiter check on any unsolicited approach before you share your CV or ID documents. Legitimate applications go through the company's own careers page.

Finally, check your work before you click submit. Upload your tailored CV to a free AI CV analysis with the job description attached. You'll get an overall score, five category scores including ATS compatibility and impact, a visual layout check, and a list of skills the posting asks for that your CV doesn't show. Every analysis also produces ATS-friendly rewritten versions in six templates that mirror the posting's keywords, which is a strong starting point for your second Northwood application. Keep a simple spreadsheet of where you applied, which CV version you sent, who referred you and when to follow up. That's especially useful because roles at fast-growing companies can close in weeks.

Frequently asked questions