Founding Lead Structures Engineer

Equity: 0.3% – 1% depending on experience

About Us

We're a stealth team building space hardware at the edge of what's currently possible — high-stakes, flight-grade systems where the engineering bar is unforgiving and the upside is enormous. While we can't share full details yet, our founding and early engineering team includes talent from SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Impulse Space, and the group includes people who've pulled off feats almost no one else on Earth has.

Role Overview

We're seeking a Founding Lead Structures Engineer to own the structural architecture and analysis of our spacecraft from first principles: the primary and secondary structure, load paths, and interfaces that carry the vehicle through launch and keep it stable and precise on orbit.

This is a senior technical leadership role. You will not only define and execute the structural architecture, but also help build the structures team, set technical and analysis standards, mentor engineers, and establish the systems, processes, and culture required to develop flight-grade hardware.

This is not a narrow analysis or CAD role. You will own structures end to end: vehicle and subsystem structural architecture, primary and secondary structure, joints and interfaces, structural dynamics, prototyping, environmental test, qualification, and the path to flight production. You will make system-level trades across mass, stiffness, strength, thermal stability, manufacturability, schedule, cost, and mission risk.

The ideal candidate has direct experience with flight structures design, structural analysis, structural dynamics, environmental test, and technical team leadership. We recognize that very few people have all of this. What matters most is that you have exceptional fundamentals, have led real hardware from concept toward flight, have managed or mentored engineers in high-performance technical environments, and can operate independently in ambiguity while making sound engineering tradeoffs. You will have direct ownership over one of the company's core technical challenges.

Key Responsibilities

Own the structural architecture of flight-grade hardware, from concept through detailed design, prototyping, qualification, integration, and flight.

Lead the design of primary and secondary structures, joints, structural interfaces, and mechanism support structure optimized for launch loads, vacuum, vibration, shock, thermal cycling, and microgravity.

Lead trade studies across mass, stiffness, strength, thermal stability, manufacturability, reliability, and cost.

Own the structural analysis approach: hand calculations, tolerance stack-ups, FEA, margins of safety, fastener and joint analysis, and coupled loads inputs at the component, subsystem, and vehicle levels.

Develop and maintain test-correlated finite element models of the vehicle, and deliver models and data to launch providers for coupled loads analysis.

Define requirements, design loads, load paths, interfaces, mass and stiffness budgets, and verification plans at the component, subsystem, and system levels.

Set the standard for CAD, 2D drawings, GD&T, release packages, interface control documents, and structural analysis reports.

Plan and lead environmental test campaigns, including static loads, sine and random vibration, shock, modal survey, and thermal vacuum, and drive hardware through qualification and acceptance.

Build the structural test and integration infrastructure: fixtures, mechanical ground support equipment (MGSE), test stands, and lab capability.

Build and test prototypes, analyze failures, and drive root-cause resolution and design iteration.

Establish relationships with machine shops, fabricators, and suppliers, and guide design for manufacturability, assembly, and inspection as hardware moves toward flight production.

Provide technical leadership across structures, structural analysis, and integration and test efforts.

Help hire, manage, mentor, and develop structures engineers, analysts, and technicians as the team grows.