Lead Harness Technician

Starcloud; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity or stock option plan

Health insurance

Job summary

Starcloud in Austin, TX is seeking a Lead Harness Technician to own harness build execution from prototype through flight hardware, shaping workmanship standards and collaborating with electrical, avionics, mechanical, and integration engineers.

You will lead fabrication, inspect, test, and document harness assemblies, read wiring diagrams, and drive continuous improvement in a fast-paced, aerospace-driven environment with meaningful impact on mission readiness.

Qualifications

• 5+ years hands-on experience building, routing, terminating, and testing electrical harnesses for aerospace or high-reliability hardware.
• Experience leading harness fabrication or integration with cross-functional teams.
• Proficiency with crimping, soldering, wire stripping, connector assembly, and shielding to high-reliability standards.
• Ability to read wiring diagrams, harness drawings, pinouts, schematics, and BOMs with high accuracy.
• Experience with electrical test equipment such as multimeters, hipot testers, and cable testers.
• Strong attention to detail and documentation discipline in traceability-focused environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day fabrication, inspection, and integration of spacecraft harnesses for prototype through flight builds.
• Interpret drawings and electrical documentation to build complex harnesses and resolve integration issues early.
• Establish high workmanship standards, processes, tool control, and inspection checklists for repeatable production.
• Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, avionics, and integration engineers to plan routing and serviceability.
• Perform continuity, isolation, and fault-finding on harnesses, documenting issues and driving rework.
• Support vehicle integration and test on the production floor, with rapid response to hardware issues.
• Mentor additional technicians and help scale lab practices as the team grows.

Skills

Harness fabrication

Team leadership

Electrical testing

Schematic interpretation

Cable harnessing standards

Tools

Crimping tools

Soldering irons

Multimeter

Hipot tester

Cable identification

Job description

About This Role

Help build the electrical backbone of orbital data centers. As Lead Harness Technician at Starcloud, you will play a hands-on leadership role in designing, fabricating, integrating, and testing the cable harnessing that connects critical spacecraft subsystems across power, avionics, compute, thermal, and communications. This is a chance to work on first-of-a-kind space hardware at the intersection of aerospace and AI infrastructure, where the quality of every connector, routing decision, and test result directly affects mission success.

You will join a small, highly technical engineering team building a new category of space systems: data centers in orbit. In this role, you will own harness build execution from prototype through flight hardware, help establish scalable workmanship standards, and partner closely with electrical, avionics, mechanical, and integration engineers. For someone who enjoys combining precision craftsmanship with process rigor and wants visible impact in a fast-moving deep-tech environment, this is an opportunity to help define how Starcloud builds reliable space-grade hardware as the company scales.

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day fabrication, inspection, and integration of spacecraft harness assemblies for prototype, qualification, and flight builds
• Interpret engineering drawings and electrical documentation to build complex harnesses, then identify and resolve manufacturability or integration issues early
• Establish and maintain high workmanship standards, build processes, tool control, and inspection checklists for reliable and repeatable harness production
• Partner with electrical, mechanical, avionics, and integration engineers to plan routing, connector access, strain relief, shielding, and serviceability across spacecraft subsystems
• Perform continuity, isolation, and fault-finding activities on harnesses and integrated hardware, documenting issues clearly and driving timely rework or corrective action
• Support vehicle integration, test, and reconfiguration activities on the production floor, including rapid response to hardware issues during critical milestones
• Help develop scalable harness lab practices including inventory management, consumables planning, workstation organization, and training or mentoring of additional technicians as the team grows

Requirements

Must-haves

• 5+ years of hands-on experience building, routing, terminating, and testing electrical harnesses for aerospace, spacecraft, avionics, defense, or other high-reliability hardware systems
• Demonstrated experience leading harness fabrication or integration work, including prioritizing builds, reviewing workmanship, and supporting cross-functional teams through integration and test
• Strong proficiency with crimping, soldering, wire stripping, connector assembly, shielding, lacing, heat shrink application, and cable identification to high-reliability workmanship standards
• Ability to read and work from wiring diagrams, harness drawings, pinouts, schematics, bills of materials, and engineering change documentation with a high level of accuracy
• Experience performing continuity, isolation, and troubleshooting of harness assemblies using standard electrical test equipment such as multimeters, hipot testers, and cable testers
• Strong attention to detail, configuration control discipline, and documentation habits in environments where traceability and quality matter

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with spacecraft, satellite bus, launch vehicle, or other flight hardware integration and environmental test campaigns
• Familiarity with IPC/WHMA-A-620, NASA-STD workmanship practices, or equivalent aerospace harnessing standards and certification environments

Benefits

• Competitive salary and meaningful equity in an early-stage company building category-defining space and compute infrastructure
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage to support you and your dependents
• Paid time off and company holidays, with a culture that values sustained performance over unnecessary burnout
• Opportunity to work side by side with experienced engineers from leading aerospace and technology organizations on hardware that will fly
• High ownership and career growth in a small team, with the chance to help shape production standards, tooling, and technician practices from the ground up
• Mission-driven, on-site environment where your craftsmanship and technical judgment have direct, visible impact on flight readiness and company progress