Senior Opto-Mechanical Engineer

Astranis builds advanced satellites for high orbits, expanding humanity’s reach into the solar system. Today Astranis satellites provide dedicated, secure networks to highly-sophisticated customers across the globe – large enterprises, sovereign governments, and the US military.

With five satellites on orbit and many more set to launch soon, the company is servicing a backlog of more than $1 billion of commercial contracts. Astranis is the preferred satellite communications partner for buyers with stringent requirements for uptime, data security, network visibility, and customization.

Astranis has raised over $1.2 billion from some of the world’s best investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Blackrock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, and Snowpoint, and employs a team of 500 engineers and entrepreneurs. Astranis designs, builds, and operates its satellites out of its 153,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Northern California, USA.

Senior Opto-Mechanical Engineer

As an Astranis Opto-Mechanical Design Engineer you will own the complete lifecycle of various opto-mechanical systems on our spacecraft. Whether it is incremental improvements or the introduction of a new system, you will work together with the various other teams at Astranis to make them a reality.

In addition to being a significant individual on your own, you will mentor and train junior opt-mechanical engineers on such projects. You must have a strong problem-solving background, hands-on testing skills, and preferably some experience with spacecraft and/or aerospace engineering.

Role

- Develop new opto-mechanical products from concept and detailed design through engineering drawings, vendor selection, evaluation, prototype builds and production

- Design and integrate free-space optical assemblies, miniature optics, optical mounts and precision alignment mechanisms

- Perform detailed tolerance analyses and tolerance stack-ups for optical and mechanical assemblies

- Integrate mechanical, optical and electrical components into complex optoelectronic systems

- Lead mechanical and opto-mechanical design reviews

- Work closely with optical, electrical, manufacturing and other cross-functional engineering teams

- Assist in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring additional teammates to our rapidly-growing team.

Requirements

- B.S. or M.S in mechanical, aerospace engineering or equivalent

- 5+ years of opto-mechanical design experience, combining precision mechanical design with optical system integration

- Experience in detailed design, development and validation of mechanical assemblies from prototype through manufacturing

- Experience designing mechanical mounts, interfaces and assemblies for optical components such as lenses, mirrors, lasers/light sources, detectors, fibers or similar optical components

- Experience with precision optical alignment, including active and/or passive alignment; micron or sub-micron alignment experience is highly desirable

- Experience with free-space optics and miniature optical assemblies

- Experience working with suppliers and/or contract manufacturers

- A passion for hardware development, including working in a fast-paced environment with hands-on design and development

- A motivated leader who has experience mentoring and supporting junior engineers

- Understanding of how mechanical tolerances, thermal effects, vibration and assembly variation can affect optical performance and alignment

- Don't meet them all? Not a problem. Please apply even if you do not meet all these criteria

Bonus

- Experience running a development program while delegating to a small team

- Experience in synthesizing requirements and flowing them down to sub-scale verification builds and testing

- Knowledge of geometric optics and semiconductor packaging/assembly

- Experience designing prototype or production equipment for optoelectronic manufacturing

- Experience managing a team of engineers

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