Mechanical & Structural Engineer

Orbital Inc.; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Medical, dental, vision 100% coverage

Unlimited PTO

On-site in Los Angeles Arts District

Job summary

Orbital Inc. in Los Angeles, CA is seeking a hardware-focused structural engineer to own the spacecraft's primary structure, deployable mechanisms, and the path from concept to flight. You will design solar arrays and radiator deployables, perform FEA under launch conditions, and ensure integration with the GPU payload and bus.

This is a hands-on, early-stage role in a small team. Join a founding-team culture with rapid iteration and the chance to ship on Pathfinder and Orbital-1 missions

Qualifications

• 5+ years of spacecraft mechanical/structural engineering experience.
• Hands-on deployable structures experience.
• Proficiency with FEA and launch loads.
• Experience taking designs from concept to fabrication, integration and test.
• Comfort in early-stage startups with rapid iteration.

Responsibilities

• Own the satellite's primary structure and architecture across the mission roadmap.
• Design deployable solar array and radiator mechanisms (stowage, deployment, latching).
• Run structural analyses including FEA, modal analysis, launch loads, and vibration.
• Define mechanical integration of the GPU payload to the bus.
• Manage mass properties, CG, and SWaP budgets.
• Interface with partners, vendors, test labs and fabrication shops.
• Lead hardware through environmental test campaigns (vibration, TVAC, deployment).
• Establish mechanical engineering practices and in-house manufacturing processes.

Skills

Spacecraft mechanical engineering

Deployable structures

Structural analysis (FEA)

Materials: CFRP/Al/Ti

Design-to-fabrication mindset

Tools

Siemens NX

ABAQUS

ANSYS

NASTRAN

Job description

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Team: Hardware / Structures

Location: Los Angeles, CA (on-site)

Type: Full-time

Compensation: $120,000 to $180,000 base + meaningful early-stage equity

About Orbital

Orbital is building data centers in space. AI inference demand is effectively unlimited, and terrestrial data centers are running into hard limits on power, land, and permitting. In orbit, the physics flips in our favor: abundant, uninterrupted solar power and "free" heat rejection into vacuum.

We're designing and manufacturing high-power compute satellites — on the order of 100 kW each — to put GPU compute where the energy and capacity are.

We're a small, fast-moving team. You'll be one of the first hardware hires and own a core part of the spacecraft.

The Role

You'll own the physical satellite — the primary structure, the deployable mechanisms, and the launch-to-orbit transformation that makes orbital compute possible.

Our production satellite is essentially a small power plant housing GPUs. The main structures are solar arrays and a deployable radiator panel that must fold into a launch fairing, survive launch, and unfold reliably in orbit. Designing these structures — and the mechanisms that deploy them — is one of our key engineering problems.

You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with our other founding engineering team members to take our first satellites from concept through design, integration, test, and flight.

What You'll Do

• Own the satellite's primary structure and structural architecture across our mission roadmap (Pathfinder → Orbital-1).
• Design the deployable solar array and radiator mechanisms — stowage, deployment, latching, and on-orbit reliability.
• Run structural analysis: FEA, modal analysis, launch loads, random vibration, shock, and stowed/deployed configurations.
• Define the mechanical integration of the GPU compute payload and its interface to the bus.
• Own mass properties, CG, and SWaP budgets across the spacecraft.
• Interface with partners and select component vendors, test labs, and fabrication shops.
• Take hardware through environmental test campaigns (vibration, TVAC support, deployment testing).
• Establish mechanical engineering practices, tooling, and processes as we stand up in-house manufacturing.

What You Bring

• 5+ years of spacecraft mechanical and/or structural engineering experience.
• Hands-on experience with deployable structures — solar arrays, antennas, radiators, booms, or similar mechanisms.
• Experience with Siemens NX, ABAQUS, ANSYS, or NASTRAN.
• Strong fundamentals in structural FEA, launch and vibration loads, and materials (CFRP, aluminum, titanium).
• Demonstrated ability to take a design from concept through fabrication, integration, and test.
• Comfort operating in an early-stage environment with imperfect information and rapid iteration.
• A first-principles, hands‑on builder — you'd rather own the whole problem than a narrow slice.

Bonus Points

• Experience with roll-out or composite-substrate solar arrays (ROSA-class or similar).
• Background at SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, or comparable.
• Experience with high-power-density spacecraft or large deployable structures.
• Prior founding-team or early-startup experience.
• Familiarity with design-for-manufacturing and serial satellite production.

Why This Role

Challenging mechanical engineering problems. Folding a power-plant-scale structure into a fairing and unfolding it reliably in orbit, around a 100 kW thermal payload, is a meaningful challenge.

Real near-term flight. Pathfinder launches in 2027, Orbital-1 in 2028 — your work goes to orbit fast, not in a decade.

Compensation & Logistics

• Base: Commensurate with experience.
• Equity: Meaningful founding equity.
• Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision — 100% covered for employee.
• PTO: Unlimited; no set hours.
• Location: Los Angeles — Arts District office, with South Bay manufacturing as we scale.

Orbital is an equal opportunity employer.