Avionics Technician - Spaceplane

Dawn Aerospace; Christchurch; On-site; NZD 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Ownership of hardware

Flat, fast-moving culture

Direct involvement in Dawn's evolution

Production foundations experience

Job summary

Dawn Aerospace in New Zealand is seeking an Avionics Technician to join our Avionics Team, focusing on building, integrating, and supporting avionics systems for the Mk-II Aurora spaceplane.

You will own electrical harness manufacture, coordinate supply chains, and help establish processes for scalable production in a fast-moving environment. Strong practical, organized, proactive mindset required.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in aircraft, aerospace, or automotive electrical integration.
• Experience in cable and harness assembly to industry standards (NASA-STD-8739.4, IPC/WHMA-A-620, RA-5401, or AC 25-26).
• Proficient with Precision Termination Tooling for crimping/terminal installation.
• Experience producing high reliability, safety-critical products.
• Experience installing and troubleshooting electrical or avionics systems.
• Experience reading/producing electrical schematics and wiring diagrams.
• Experience with standard electrical test equipment (multimeters, insulation testers, oscilloscopes, network analysers).
• Clear written and spoken English.

Responsibilities

• Build, install, and test flight-ready electrical harnesses, including manufacture, lacing, termination, labelling, inspection, routing, continuity testing, fault finding, and verification.
• Support the transition from development to production by improving documentation, work instructions, tooling, and production workflows.
• Integrate avionics systems into aircraft, including flight computers, sensors, radios, antennas, and supporting electronics.
• Configure and verify aircraft electrical systems, and support system-level testing during integration.
• Manage harness and avionics supply chains, including sourcing, BOMs, procurement, inventory, supplier engagement, harness kits, and production stock.
• Create and maintain design data including electrical schematics, BOMs, standards and SOPs.
• Maintain high standards of workmanship, safety, and documentation.
• Collaborate closely with avionics, mechanical, manufacturing, and flight test teams.
• Contribute ideas and feedback to improve designs, processes, and product quality.

Skills

Electrical harnessing

Avionics integration

Troubleshooting electrical systems

Schematic reading

Inventory management

English communication

Tools

Multimeters

Insulation testers

Oscilloscopes

Network analysers

Job description

Our Mission: Fly to space twice in a day.

At Dawn Aerospace, we are building the Aurora, a reusable rocket-powered spaceplane designed to make access to space as routine as aviation. To support this mission Dawn is looking for an Avionics Technician to join our Avionics Team.

This is a hands-on role focused on building, integrating, and supporting the avionics systems that power the Mk-II Aurora spaceplane. You will work closely with avionics engineers, manufacturing teams, and suppliers to deliver high-quality aircraft systems as we transition the Mk-II Aurora from a research and development platform into a repeatable production aircraft.

You will take ownership of electrical harness manufacture, supply chain coordination, and helping establish the processes and standards that will support future aircraft production. If you want a narrow, heavily structured role, this is probably not for you. We are looking for someone practical, organised, and capable of taking ownership in a fast-moving environment.

Whatyou'lldo

• Build, install, and test flight-ready electrical harnesses, including manufacture, lacing, termination, labelling, inspection, routing, continuity testing, fault finding, and verification.
• Support the transition from development to production by improving documentation, work instructions, tooling, and production workflows.
• Integrate avionics systems into aircraft, including flight computers, sensors, radios, antennas, and supporting electronics.
• Configure and verify aircraft electrical systems, and support system-level testing during integration.
• Manage harness and avionics supply chains, including sourcing, bills of materials, procurement, inventory, supplier engagement, harness kits, and production stock.
• Create and maintain design data including electrical schematics, BOMs, standards and SOPs.
• Maintain high standards of workmanship, safety, and documentation.
• Collaborate closely with avionics, mechanical, manufacturing, and flight test teams.
• Contribute ideas and feedback to improve designs, processes, and product quality.

Whatwe'relooking for

You will have:

• 5+years of experience in aircraft, aerospace, or automotive, electrical integration.
• Experience in cable and harness assembly to recognised industry standards, such as NASA-STD-8739.4, IPC/WHMA-A-620, RA-5401, or AC 25-26.
• Proficient in the use of a range of Precision Termination Tooling (PTT) for electrical crimping and terminal installation.
• Experience producing high reliability, safety-critical products.
• Experience installing and troubleshooting electrical or avionics systems.
• Experience reading and producing electrical schematics, wiring diagrams, and engineering drawings.
• Experience with standard electrical test equipment, such as multimeters, insulation testers, oscilloscopes, or network analysers.
• A strong practical understanding of electrical systems and electronics.
• Experience managing components, inventory, suppliers, or production materials.
• Clear written and spoken English.

Bonus skills, nice to have

• Aircraft avionics integration experience.
• RF system installation and coaxial harnessing.
• Experience with Rapid harness.
• Experience with CAD tools such as SolidWorks Electrical or SolidWorks.
• High-reliability soldering, such as ECSS-Q-ST-70-08.
• PCB assembly, rework, or modification.
• Experience creating manufacturing documentation or work instructions.
• Familiarity with configuration control and production quality systems.

What sets you apart

You enjoy building things that fly. You take pride in producing clean, reliable, and well-documented work. You are equally comfortable on the workshop floor assembling a harness, troubleshooting an aircraft system, or coordinating with suppliers to keep production moving.

You understand that great aircraft are built through repeatable processes, attention to detail, and strong teamwork. You look for ways to improve how things are done and help turn cutting-edge designs into products that can be built again and again.

What we offer

• A chance to work on something that has never been done before.
• Ownership of meaningful hardware from day one.
• Direct involvement in the evolution of the world's highest-performing runway-launched spaceplane.
• A flat, fast-moving culture that rewards initiative.
• The opportunity to help build the foundations of aircraft production at Dawn Aerospace.

Diversity & Inclusion

At Dawn Aerospace, we believe that diverse teams build better solutions. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where people of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences are valued and supported to do their best work.

About Dawn Aerospace

Dawn Aerospace is a space transportation company with a purpose.
Our mission is to enable the next generation of space users by providing more sustainable and scalable ways to access and move around in space. We believe this access, in the form of a transportation network, will fundamentally change what’s possible from space. We currently focus on three areas of space transportation:

• In-space propulsion
  We're a leading supplier of turnkey green propulsion systems for various classes of satellites. Our systems utilise safe, accessible propellants and we have over 170 of these propulsion units on more than 40 operational satellites already. A further 200 units are in production.
• In-space servicing
  Coupled with our propulsion expertise, we are ensuring that our customers' satellites are refuellable. In the coming years, Dawn will offer a refueling service to enable life extension of customer satellites. This new market is aligned with our sustainability goal to ensue a clean and safe space for everyone!
• Spaceplane
  We are developing the fastest and highest-flying aircraft ever to take off from a runway, combining the extreme performance of rocket propulsion with the reusability of conventional airplanes to enable high-frequency, low-cost access to sub-orbital space.

Our international teams are distributed across four locations: the Netherlands, France, New Zealand, and the USA.