Electric Propulsion Engineer, Mechanical (Starshield)

About the role

Starshield leverages SpaceX's Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts. While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on earth observation, communications, and hosted payloads.

Responsibilities

• Design, analyze, test, and provide operational support for high-volume production spacecraft electric propulsion hardware
• Partner with manufacturing to ensure designs enable efficient, reliable, high-rate production
• Design, build, modify, operate, and troubleshoot electric propulsion test facilities, including vacuum chambers, pressure systems, cryogenic pumps, data acquisition and control systems, and associated instrumentation
• Analyze and review test data with numerical tools to confirm hardware is operating as expected and inform design decisions
• Lead root-cause investigations and component redesigns to improve reliability and/or production rates
• Develop and execute qualification test plans for flight readiness (vibration, shock, thermal cycle, life cycle, fault injection)
• Make rigorous, risk-informed trades across cost, lead time, reliability, and performance to meet program reliability targets for mission-critical flight hardware
• Own critical spaceflight hardware end-to-end, with support from manufacturing, reliability, test, and operations teams
• Work as an integrated team, with daily interactions among technicians, engineers, and managers; identify and implement design and process improvements
• Communicate clearly under ambiguity, escalate technical and schedule risks early, and collaborate through disagreement

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, aerospace, physics, or other engineering discipline
• 3+ years of total experience in one or a combination of the following: professional experience designing, testing, and analyzing electric propulsion systems; or related spacecraft propulsion, fluid, pressure, plasma, or thruster-adjacent hardware experience (e.g., thermal, structural, power, or diagnostics for EP/plasma systems)

Preferred Skills And Experience

• Demonstrated delivery of hardware for high-reliability or safety-critical use
• Working knowledge of structural design, materials properties, thermodynamics, fluid/pressure/vacuum systems, and numerical analysis programming (e.g., Python, MATLAB); plasma physics as applicable (depth in several of these areas is valued; mastery of all is not expected)
• Experience prioritizing concurrent design, build, and test work against flight and production milestones
• Clear documentation habits and attention to detail appropriate for flight hardware
• Track record of improving designs and processes for reliability, rate, or quality
• Active Top Secret or Top Secret/SCI clearance, or ability and willingness to obtain a Top Secret clearance, is desired but not required

Additional Requirements

• Ability to perform essential job duties that may include working in and around vacuum chambers—standing, kneeling, crouching, twisting the upper body, working in cramped positions in small openings, and climbing hand-over-hand
• Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the role
• Ability to travel up to 10% of the time

Pay Range

Level 2: $120,000.00 - $170,000.00