Harness Design Engineer
K2 is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown, unlocking performance levels previously out of reach across every orbit. Backed by over $1 billion in total funding from leading investors including Altimeter Capital, ICONIQ, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and T. Rowe Price — and with over $1 billion in signed contracts across commercial and US government customers, we're mass-producing the highest-power satellite platforms ever built for missions from LEO to deep space.
The rise of heavy-lift launch vehicles is shifting the industry from an era of mass constraint to one of mass abundance, and we believe this new era demands a fundamentally different class of spacecraft. Engineered to survive the harshest radiation environments and to fully capitalize on today's and tomorrow's massive rockets, K2 satellites deliver unmatched capability at constellation scale and across multiple orbits.
With multiple launches in 2027 and plans to scale to 100 satellites a year, we're Building Bigger — helping develop the solar system and build toward a Kardashev Type II (K2) civilization. If you are a motivated individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment and you're excited about contributing to the success of a high-growth Series D-funded company, we'd love for you to apply.
The Role
You will be responsible for harness and wiring system design, analysis, testing and integration on some of the largest, most powerful, rapidly designed and manufactured satellites. You will have the unique opportunity to collaborate with a cross functional team of engineers and own trades to reduce cost, increase integration rate, and decrease mass of bus and payload harnessing. You will be the Responsible Engineer for harness system design and components such as connectors, wire and cable, instrumentation, and heaters. You will help establish production test requirements and support vehicle avionics integration to enable high-rate production and constellation launch cadence. In your first two years, you will have qualified hardware for flight, completed avionics integration on the satellite bus, and flown your hardware through intense LEO, MEO and GEO environments.
Responsibilities
- Serve as Responsible Engineer for harness system design for bus avionics, mechanisms, RF systems, and payloads across the Mega and Giga satellites
- Define interface control documents for avionics boxes and bulkheads to optimize system diagrams and schematics
- Design, analyze, and release harnessing and secondary mounting hardware in CAD and production drawings based on system schematics and vehicle layout
- Drive design trades to reduce cost and select harness components such as connectors, contacts, wire/cables, shield braid, heaters, RTDs and more
- Collaborate closely with the manufacturing engineering and technicians on the harness and electro-mechanical subassembly teams to solve in process issues and ensure high reliability
- Execute development and qualification testing of harness components and assemblies for critical space missions in MEO and GEO orbits
- Collaborate closely with the cross functional engineering teams to capture requirements, lead design trades, and integrate the design into the spacecraft systems
- Effectively manage and communicate project plan, milestones, and schedule execution
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in aerospace, mechanical, or electrical engineering or any equivalent combination of education and experience
- 2+ years of experience in electrical harness design, routing, production, and system integration
- Ability to work in a fast-paced and high velocity start-up atmosphere
- Creative problem solver that can assess risk and make collaborative design and development decisions
Nice to Have
- Hands-on experience with environmental testing for space harnessing such as thermal, thermal vacuum, vibration, shock, radiation, and EMI/EMC testing per SMC-S-016
- Competence with electrical test equipment (multimeters, oscilloscopes, network analyzers, etc.)