Lead Space Design Engineer — Hands-On & Systems Prototyping

Slope; United States; On-site; USD 129,000 - 171,000; Full time

Job summary

Anduril Industries in Chantilly, VA is seeking Design Engineers for the Space Special Programs team. You will work on core technologies, subsystems, spacecraft, and complete space systems supporting the team and mission.

The role emphasizes ownership, mentorship, and contributing as an individual contributor in technical and strategic areas. The ideal candidate has hands-on experience designing, analyzing, building, and operating spacecraft mechanical and opto-mechanical systems, including

Qualifications

• Experience on immersive technical spacecraft projects.
• Demonstrated leadership in engineering teams.
• 2-8 years of mechanical and mechanism design in professional settings.
• Experience designing systems for spacecraft and related space systems.
• Experience with ground-up system design and 3‑D CAD.
• Hands-on assembly, prototyping, testing, and characterizing mechanisms for 0g in 1g environments.
• Experience designing small mechanisms and components.
• Familiarity with launch environments, range safety, and system integration.
• Creative, practical problem solving with a bias toward reliability.

Responsibilities

• Execute rapid evaluation of engineering concepts across fields.
• Create solutions with analysis, design, and experimentation for blue-sky and mission needs.
• Design, analyze, implement, and test complex electro-mechanical systems.
• Maintain high level system ownership with autonomy.
• Participate in design reviews, integration, and test campaigns.
• Build prototypes, analyze failures, and transition projects into production.
• Mentor engineers in small spacecraft design and testing.
• Support hardware demonstrations with customers as needed.
• Travel to test sites as required.
• Apply first principles and physics to decisions.
• Identify industry partners and manage early vendor relationships.

Skills

Leadership

Project management

System thinking

First principles

Problem solving

Communication

Education

BS/MS or PhD in engineering

Tools

3D CAD

Oscilloscopes

Power supplies

Job description

Anduril Industries in Chantilly, VA is seeking Design Engineers for the Space Special Programs team. You will work on core technologies, subsystems, spacecraft, and complete space systems supporting the team and mission.

The role emphasizes ownership, mentorship, and contributing as an individual contributor in technical and strategic areas. The ideal candidate has hands-on experience designing, analyzing, building, and operating spacecraft mechanical and opto-mechanical systems, including