Flight-Ready Satellite Mechanisms Engineer – Lead

Telemetry Today LLC; Kent, Northern (WA, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in Cowboy Space Corp.

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) retirement savings plan

Paid time off

10 paid holidays per calendar year

Paid parental leave

Relocation assistance if applicable

Daily lunch in the office and snacks

Job summary

Cowboy Space Corporation is seeking a Mechanisms Engineer to own a spacecraft mechanism subsystem from concept to flight. Depending on priorities, you may work on HDRMs, solar array deployment, deployable structures, or thermal/radiator articulation mechanisms, collaborating with structures, thermal, power, and avionics teams.

This hands-on role emphasizes rapid iteration, on-the-floor problem solving, and end-to-end development, including design, analysis, testing, and qualification to ensure

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering.
• 5+ years designing mechanisms or mechanical systems for spacecraft or high‑performance hardware.
• Experience taking hardware from concept through build, integration and test.
• Strong fundamentals in structural mechanics, kinematics, materials, and manufacturing processes.
• Proficiency with CAD (NX, SolidWorks, CATIA, or Creo) and creating engineering drawings to ASME Y14.5 GD&T standards.
• Proficiency with FEA tools (ANSYS, Nastran, or Abaqus) for mechanism load-path and dynamic problems.
• U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Responsibilities

• Own your mechanism subsystem from concept through design, analysis, test, and flight.
• Drive structural and kinematic design for minimum mass while meeting strength, stiffness, fatigue, and operational-life requirements across launch, on-orbit deployment, and mission-life environments.
• Balance performance, manufacturability, cost, and schedule in every design decision.
• Perform analysis — hand calculations, FEA, tolerance stack-ups, deployment dynamics — and validate predictions with test and on-orbit data.
• Define and execute qualification and acceptance test campaigns, including vibration, thermal vacuum, deployment, and life testing; author procedures, acceptance criteria, and anomaly dispositions.
• Develop and maintain engineering drawings, models, and release documentation.
• Work directly on the factory floor with manufacturing and integration & test teams to iterate quickly and resolve build issues in real time.
• Troubleshoot hardware anomalies, perform root cause analysis, and implement design improvements.
• Support spacecraft integration & test, launch site operations, and on-orbit commissioning/anomaly response.

Skills

Mechanisms design

Spacecraft hardware

CAD

FEM/FEA

Engineering drawings

Tolerance analysis

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering

Tools

NX

SolidWorks

CATIA

Creo

ANSYS

Nastran

Abaqus

Job description

Cowboy Space Corporation is seeking a Mechanisms Engineer to own a spacecraft mechanism subsystem from concept to flight. Depending on priorities, you may work on HDRMs, solar array deployment, deployable structures, or thermal/radiator articulation mechanisms, collaborating with structures, thermal, power, and avionics teams.

This hands-on role emphasizes rapid iteration, on-the-floor problem solving, and end-to-end development, including design, analysis, testing, and qualification to ensure