How to Apply to MDA Space

9 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 1 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • MDA Space is a publicly traded Canadian space prime (TSX: MDA) with three segments — Geointelligence, Robotics and Space Operations, and Satellite Systems — and roughly 3,000 employees across five Canadian sites.
  • Most engineering roles require eligibility for Canadian security clearance and Controlled Goods Program registration; non-Canadian applicants face longer paths and limited role availability.
  • Major active programs include Telesat Lightspeed satellite manufacturing, NASA Canadarm3 for the Lunar Gateway, the CHORUS Earth observation constellation, and the MDA Aurora software-defined satellite platform.
  • The company carries real execution and concentration risk — Lightspeed is a multi-year manufacturing build, CSA budgets are politically driven, and the space industry has historic boom-bust cycles.
  • Hiring favours candidates with demonstrated spaceflight, defence, or regulated-industry heritage and concrete experience working to formal standards and review gates.
  • Bilingual French and English is a meaningful advantage for Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue and any federal-customer-facing role.
  • Interview pace is slower and more deliberate than commercial tech; expect deep technical discussion and several weeks between final interview and offer.
  • MDA returned to Canadian ownership in 2020 via the Northern Private Capital-led buyout from Maxar and re-IPO'd in 2021, so the current company has had only a few years to settle into its post-spinoff identity.

About MDA Space

MDA Space Ltd. (TSX: MDA) is a Canadian space technology company headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, with major engineering hubs in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue (Quebec), Ottawa, Halifax, and Vancouver. Founded in 1969 in Vancouver as MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, the company rebranded to MDA Space in 2024 to clarify its singular focus on the space economy. CEO Mike Greenley has led the organization since 2020, the year MDA was spun out of US-based Maxar Technologies (NYSE: MAXR) through a roughly CAD $1 billion buyout led by Northern Private Capital that returned the company to Canadian ownership. MDA reverse-IPO'd onto the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2021 and currently trades in the CAD $2 to 3 billion market capitalization range. The company operates across three business segments. Geointelligence builds and operates Earth observation systems including the RADARSAT-2 commercial satellite, the ground segment for the Canadian government's RADARSAT Constellation Mission, and the in-development CHORUS multi-sensor SAR and optical Earth observation constellation. Robotics and Space Operations is the heritage segment behind the iconic Canadarm on the Space Shuttle, Canadarm2 and Dextre on the International Space Station, and Canadarm3, currently in development for NASA's Lunar Gateway under a CSA-funded program valued in excess of CAD $1 billion. Satellite Systems manufactures full spacecraft, including the contract-winning bid for Telesat Lightspeed's LEO broadband constellation (announced 2023, valued at roughly CAD $2 billion plus, after the program was re-tendered following the original Thales Alenia Space award), Globalstar replacement satellites, and the next-generation MDA Aurora platform for software-defined satellites being developed in Halifax. MDA employs roughly 3,000 people. The Canadian Space Agency is both a major customer and a public funding partner, and the Department of National Defence procures surveillance and intelligence capabilities. NASA flows work through CSA for International Space Station and Lunar Gateway robotics. European Space Agency contracts and commercial telecom operators round out the customer base. Because the company integrates US-origin technology, many roles are governed by ITAR, Canada's Controlled Goods Program, and security clearance requirements that frequently restrict candidates to Canadian citizens or, for some positions, dual Canadian and US citizens. The space industry's well-documented boom-and-bust cyclicality, the execution risk of the multi-year Lightspeed manufacturing program, and ongoing dependence on CSA budget cycles are realities that should inform any candidate's decision to pursue MDA. Compensation, benefits, and stability tend to be solid for established Canadian engineering employers, but program timelines and government appropriations move slowly, and that pace permeates the work.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Browse open positions at mda

    Browse open positions at mda.space/careers and filter by location (Brampton, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Ottawa, Halifax, Vancouver) and business segment (Geointelligence, Robotics and Space Operations, Satellite Systems).

  2. 2
    Read the job posting carefully for ITAR, Controlled Goods Program, or security c

    Read the job posting carefully for ITAR, Controlled Goods Program, or security clearance language; if the role requires Canadian citizenship or eligibility for clearance, confirm you meet the criteria before applying.

  3. 3
    Tailor your resume to mirror the exact phrasing in the posting, especially for s

    Tailor your resume to mirror the exact phrasing in the posting, especially for systems engineering, RF, GNC, thermal, structures, software, and FPGA roles where the ATS keyword match matters.

  4. 4
    Submit through the MDA careers portal; create an account so you can track status

    Submit through the MDA careers portal; create an account so you can track status and apply to multiple postings without re-entering your information.

  5. 5
    Expect an initial recruiter screen by phone or video within one to three weeks f

    Expect an initial recruiter screen by phone or video within one to three weeks for in-demand roles; less critical reqs can take longer due to program funding cycles.

  6. 6
    Technical interviews follow with the hiring manager and senior engineers; for en

    Technical interviews follow with the hiring manager and senior engineers; for engineering roles, prepare to discuss past projects in depth and answer first-principles questions tied to the segment.

  7. 7
    Panel or loop interviews are common for senior roles and may include cross-funct

    Panel or loop interviews are common for senior roles and may include cross-functional stakeholders from systems, programs, and quality assurance.

  8. 8
    Reference checks and a formal offer typically follow within two to four weeks of

    Reference checks and a formal offer typically follow within two to four weeks of the final interview; clearance processing can extend the start date by weeks or months.

  9. 9
    If you are not Canadian, ask early about visa sponsorship and clearance pathways

    If you are not Canadian, ask early about visa sponsorship and clearance pathways; MDA does sponsor for hard-to-fill specialist roles but the process is slower than for citizen candidates.

  10. 10
    Follow up politely with the recruiter once per week if you do not hear back; aer

    Follow up politely with the recruiter once per week if you do not hear back; aerospace hiring cycles are slower than commercial tech and silence does not always mean rejection.

Resume Tips for MDA Space

recommended

Lead with concrete spaceflight, defence, or regulated-industry experience — heri

Lead with concrete spaceflight, defence, or regulated-industry experience — heritage matters more at MDA than at commercial tech employers.

recommended

Quantify mission impact where possible: number of satellites delivered, kilogram

Quantify mission impact where possible: number of satellites delivered, kilograms launched, hours of on-orbit operation, percentage mass or power margin recovered.

recommended

Name the standards you have worked to (ECSS, MIL-STD-1540, NASA-STD-8739, DO-178

Name the standards you have worked to (ECSS, MIL-STD-1540, NASA-STD-8739, DO-178C, DO-254, ISO 9001, AS9100) and the formal review gates (PDR, CDR, TRR, FRR) you have passed.

recommended

Call out specific tools the segment uses: STK, MATLAB and Simulink, NX, CATIA, A

Call out specific tools the segment uses: STK, MATLAB and Simulink, NX, CATIA, Ansys, Thermal Desktop, GMAT, FreeFlyer, Cadence, Xilinx Vivado, GNU Radio, Linux RTOS environments.

recommended

If you have any clearance or eligibility (Canadian Reliability, Secret, Top Secr

If you have any clearance or eligibility (Canadian Reliability, Secret, Top Secret, NATO Secret, Controlled Goods registration), state it explicitly with the granting authority.

recommended

For software roles, list flight-software languages (C, C++, Ada, Rust) and groun

For software roles, list flight-software languages (C, C++, Ada, Rust) and ground-segment stacks (Python, Java, Kubernetes, AWS or Azure GovCloud) separately to show breadth.

recommended

Highlight Canadian content and bilingual French/English ability for Sainte-Anne-

Highlight Canadian content and bilingual French/English ability for Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue and federal-facing roles — both are tangible hiring factors.

recommended

Skip generic objective statements; replace them with a two-sentence summary that

Skip generic objective statements; replace them with a two-sentence summary that names the segment you are targeting and the mission profile you bring.

recommended

Keep the resume to two pages for early-career and three for staff and principal

Keep the resume to two pages for early-career and three for staff and principal levels; aerospace recruiters expect detail but not novels.

recommended

Spell out acronyms on first use — even space-industry acronyms — because the scr

Spell out acronyms on first use — even space-industry acronyms — because the screener may be a non-technical recruiter.

ATS System: MDA Careers Portal (in-house career site)

MDA Space lists openings on mda.space/careers using a standard applicant tracking workflow. The system parses uploaded resumes for keywords, contact information, and work history, and surfaces matching candidates to recruiters who then advance applicants through staged review.

  • Upload a clean PDF or DOCX resume with selectable text — never a scanned image, which the parser cannot read.
  • Mirror the exact job title and skill phrasing from the posting in your resume's summary or first job entry to maximize keyword match.
  • Complete every field in the application form, including voluntary EEO and self-identification fields where applicable, since incomplete profiles can be auto-deprioritized.
  • Use a standard chronological resume layout with clear section headings (Experience, Education, Skills, Clearances) — exotic two-column or graphic-heavy templates often confuse parsers.
  • List your eligibility for security clearance and Controlled Goods Program registration in a dedicated line near the top of the resume so it is captured during initial screening.
  • Avoid stuffing keywords in white text or footers; modern ATS systems flag this as gaming and recruiters will discard the application.

Interview Culture

MDA's interview culture reflects the company's heritage as a serious aerospace prime contractor.

Expect technical rigour, a slower pace than commercial software companies, and a strong emphasis on demonstrated experience with regulated, mission-critical work. Initial recruiter screens are conversational and focus on motivation, eligibility for clearance, and salary expectations. Technical rounds usually involve the hiring manager and one or two senior engineers and run sixty to ninety minutes. For systems engineering and design roles, you should be ready to walk through a past project end to end, defend trade-off decisions, and respond to detailed follow-up questions about analysis methods, margins, and verification approach. Software and FPGA candidates can expect coding or design-review questions tied to flight-software constraints — memory budgets, deterministic timing, fault tolerance — rather than leetcode-style puzzles. Behavioural questions probe how you handled cross-functional disagreement, managed risk on a previous program, and worked within formal change control. Panel interviews are common for senior, principal, and lead roles, and may include a programs or business-development representative when the position interfaces with customers like CSA, NASA, ESA, or Telesat. Dress is business casual on-site; expect to be escorted at all times in Brampton and Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue facilities because of Controlled Goods Program rules. Decisions take longer than at startups — two to four weeks between final interview and offer is normal — and clearance processing can add additional weeks before your start date. The overall tone is professional, technically demanding, and pragmatic rather than performative.

What MDA Space Looks For

  • Hands-on experience with spaceflight hardware, defence systems, or comparably regulated engineering programs (medical devices, civil aviation, nuclear).
  • Demonstrated comfort with formal systems engineering practice — requirements decomposition, trade studies, verification matrices, and review-gate documentation.
  • Eligibility for Canadian security clearance and Controlled Goods Program registration, which in practice usually means Canadian citizenship or permanent residency with a qualifying background.
  • Strong written communication; aerospace work generates extensive documentation that customers and auditors actually read.
  • For technical roles, depth in at least one core discipline (RF, optics, thermal, structures, GNC, propulsion, robotics, FPGA, flight software, ground software) rather than generalist breadth alone.
  • Comfort with long program cycles, slow decision-making, and working alongside government customers whose timelines are driven by appropriations rather than market urgency.
  • Bilingual French and English capability is a genuine advantage for Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue roles and any federal-facing work.
  • A track record of shipping — flown hardware, delivered satellites, deployed ground systems, or completed verification campaigns — beats academic credentials alone.
  • Cultural fit with a heritage Canadian engineering organization that values reliability, rigour, and humility over self-promotion.
  • Interest in the specific business segment you are applying to — generic enthusiasm for space is fine, but specific knowledge of CHORUS, Canadarm3, or MDA Aurora signals genuine engagement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does MDA Space require Canadian citizenship?
Many engineering and program roles require eligibility for Canadian security clearance (Reliability, Secret, or higher) and registration under the Controlled Goods Program. In practice this usually means Canadian citizenship or long-term permanent residency with a verifiable background. Some commercial-side positions are more flexible, and a smaller number of hard-to-fill specialist roles support visa sponsorship. Always read the posting carefully and ask the recruiter early.
What is the relationship between MDA Space and Maxar Technologies?
MDA was spun out of Maxar Technologies in 2020 through a buyout led by Northern Private Capital that returned the company to Canadian ownership. Maxar continues as a separate US-based Earth observation and space infrastructure company. There is no current corporate relationship between the two firms, though they share heritage and in some markets compete directly.
Where are MDA Space's offices located?
Headquarters is in Brampton, Ontario. Major engineering and operations sites include Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue in Quebec (satellite payloads and antennas, plus French-language federal work), Ottawa, Halifax (notably MDA Aurora platform development), and Vancouver (the company's original home and ongoing engineering presence). Field offices and customer-facing sites exist elsewhere.
What is Canadarm3 and why does it matter for MDA hiring?
Canadarm3 is the next-generation robotic arm system MDA is building for NASA's Lunar Gateway space station, funded by the Canadian Space Agency under a contract worth more than CAD $1 billion. It extends MDA's Canadarm heritage on the Space Shuttle and ISS into the cislunar environment, and it drives substantial multi-year hiring across robotics, controls, software, mechanical, and systems engineering disciplines.
What is the Telesat Lightspeed program?
Lightspeed is Telesat's planned low-Earth orbit broadband satellite constellation. The original satellite manufacturing contract went to Thales Alenia Space, was paused due to financing issues, and was re-tendered. MDA won the new contract, announced in 2023, valued at roughly CAD $2 billion or more. The program represents a multi-year manufacturing build for MDA Satellite Systems and is a major source of current and projected hiring in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Halifax, and Brampton.
Is the salary competitive with US space companies like SpaceX or Maxar?
Compensation is generally competitive within the Canadian aerospace market but typically below US west coast space-industry pay, even adjusting for currency and cost of living. MDA offers stable employment, defined benefits or matching plans, and the intangible value of working on flagship Canadian programs. Candidates who optimize purely for cash compensation often find better offers at US firms; candidates who weight stability, mission, and family-friendly Canadian work culture tend to find MDA a strong fit.
Does MDA Space hire new graduates?
Yes. MDA runs co-op and internship programs with Canadian engineering schools and posts entry-level engineering positions across all three segments. New-graduate hiring tends to cluster around program awards (a major contract win triggers a hiring wave) and the September academic cycle. Engineering co-ops at Brampton, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, and Halifax are competitive and often serve as a pipeline to full-time offers.
What is the dress code and work environment?
Dress is business casual at most office locations. Cleanroom and lab environments require gowning. Because of Controlled Goods Program rules, visitors and uncleared personnel are escorted at all times in restricted areas. Hybrid work is offered for many engineering roles, but hardware-facing positions require regular on-site presence.
Who are MDA Space's main competitors?
On satellite manufacturing: Maxar Technologies, Airbus Defence and Space, Thales Alenia Space, OHB SE, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman, Boeing Space, Mitsubishi Electric, and SpaceX (for telecom via Starlink). On robotics: Honeybee Robotics (Blue Origin), Astrobotic, and various NASA-internal capabilities. On Earth observation: Capella Space, ICEYE, Planet Labs, BlackSky, and Maxar. The competitive picture varies by segment.
How long does the hiring process typically take?
Plan for four to ten weeks from application to offer for most engineering roles. Recruiter screen happens within one to three weeks for in-demand reqs, technical and panel interviews unfold over two to four weeks after that, and decision plus offer takes another two to four weeks. Security clearance processing for new hires can add additional weeks or months before your start date — MDA can sometimes start you on uncleared work in the interim.
Does MDA Space sponsor work permits for international candidates?
MDA does sponsor work permits for hard-to-fill specialist roles, but the cleared-work nature of much of the business limits how often this happens. International candidates have the best odds in commercial software, AI and machine learning for Earth observation, and senior specialist engineering positions where the talent pool is genuinely scarce. Always ask the recruiter directly and early.
What programming languages and tools should I know?
It depends on the role. Flight software roles emphasize C, C++, and Ada with Rust emerging; ground software and data processing emphasize Python, Java, Kubernetes, and cloud platforms (AWS and Azure GovCloud variants). Systems engineers should know MATLAB, Simulink, STK, and increasingly model-based systems engineering tools like Cameo or Capella. FPGA roles use Xilinx Vivado and VHDL or SystemVerilog. Hardware design uses NX, CATIA, Ansys, and Thermal Desktop. List what you actually know honestly — MDA values depth over inflated claims.

Open Positions

MDA Space currently has 1 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 1 open positions at MDA Space

Related Resources

Related Articles

Sources

  1. MDA Space — Official Corporate Website —
  2. MDA Space — Careers Portal —
  3. MDA Space — Investor Relations and TSX Filings —
  4. Canadian Space Agency — Canadarm3 Program —
  5. Telesat — Lightspeed LEO Constellation Announcements —
  6. Government of Canada — Controlled Goods Program —
  7. Northern Private Capital — MDA Acquisition Press Release (2020) —
  8. Maxar Technologies — Sale of MDA Announcement (2019-2020) —
  9. TSX Listing — MDA Space (TSX: MDA) —
  10. RADARSAT Constellation Mission — Canadian Space Agency —
  11. MDA Space — CHORUS Earth Observation Constellation —
  12. NASA Lunar Gateway — International Partner Contributions —