Head of IT

Head of IT About Cowboy Space Corp.: Cowboy Space Corp. is building the infrastructure to power and connect the orbital economy. Our satellites operate in Low Earth Orbit to collect sunlight and enable a new class of capabilities—from transmitting energy via infrared lasers (space-to-earth and space-to-space), to powering on-orbit compute, to delivering secure, high-bandwidth optical data. By rethinking how energy and data are generated and distributed in space, we’re unlocking entirely new ways to operate both in orbit and on Earth. Founded in 2024 by Baiju Bhatt (co-founder of Robinhood), Cowboy Space Corp. is backed by leading investors and built by a team from top aerospace and defense organizations. We’re moving quickly to solve complex technical challenges and build a new category of space infrastructure.

About

the role: The Head of IT will define and execute the company’s IT strategy across corporate systems, engineering infrastructure, mission operations support, cybersecurity, and compliance. This leader will ensure our IT architecture supports secure satellite development, ground segment operations, regulatory

requirements, and rapid global scaling. This is a highly cross-functional leadership role, reporting to the COO/CLO but partnering with Engineering, Security, Finance, and People teams to build resilient, secure, and scalable systems in a highly regulated environment. This is both a strategic and hands-on leadership role in a rapidly scaling hardware company, and is in-person at our San Carlos, CA HQ.

Responsibilities: Define and execute the company-wide IT roadmap aligned with business and mission objectives Build and lead a high-performing IT team (infrastructure, applications, support, security) Develop IT governance, policies, and standards Manage IT budget planning and vendor relationships Design and operate secure and scalable hybrid infrastructure Support high-performance compute environments for satellite design, simulation and testing Ensure high availability for mission-critical systems and operations Implement disaster recovery and business continuity planning Own enterprise cybersecurity strategy across corporate, production, and mission environments Implement zero-trust architecture and endpoint security Ensure compliance with relevant frameworks (e.g. ITAR/EAR) Oversee ERP, HRIS, collaboration, identity management, and productivity tools Support scaling processes across Finance, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing Drive automation and process optimization initiatives Partner with software and hardware engineering to support secure development environments Ensure secure data pipelines for satellite telemetry and payload data Manage MSPs, cloud providers, and security vendors; negotiate enterprise contracts and SLAs Serve as executive point-of-contact for IT-related audits and due diligence Basic