Optical Manufacturing Engineer — Space Telescopes

Telemetry Today LLC; Northern, Los Angeles (KY, CA); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits

Paid time off

Parental leave

Job summary

K2 Space in the United States seeks an Optical Manufacturing Engineer to bridge optical design and production, building first prototypes, defining build flow, tooling, and fixtures for space-qualified optics.

You will develop DOE/DFX practices, validate metrology, manage alignment methods, and scale processes to high-rate production on flight hardware within a growing space systems team.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical, optical mechanical, aero space, or other relevant engineering discipline.
• 3+ years of experience in a high volume, rapid production environment in a manufacturing, integration, and/or design engineering role.
• Demonstrated results with product development and/or process improvements.
• Experience setting up a manufacturing/production floor for first article builds.
• Experience designing and implementing technologies for avionics subassembly manufacturing including wire harness manufacturing and PCBA/mechanical enclosure assembly.
• Experience providing DFX guidance on optomechanical designs, with the ability to read and review mechanical and optical drawings, including GD&T and optical tolerance callouts.
• Familiarity with optical metrology equipment such as interferometers, autocollimators, theodolites, laser trackers, and power meters.
• Experience working with FOD, ESD-sensitive hardware, cleanroom requirements, and optical cleaning methods and solvents.
• Familiarity with industry standards governing optical components and assemblies, including ISO 10110, MIL-PRF-13830, ISO 14999, ISO 9211, MIL-C-48497, ISO 14644, IEST-STD-CC1246, ASTM E595, NASA-STD-8739.1, NASA-STD-8739.5, ANSI/ESD S20.20, ANSI Z136.1, IEC 60825-1

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with the Principal Optomechanical Engineer and optical design team to provide DFX guidance across optics, optomechanical mounts, bonded assemblies, and integrated electro-optical hardware for initial design, flight hardware, and tooling
• Develop manufacturing and assembly processes for space-qualified optical subsystems and large aperture telescopes, including precision inspection and cleaning, adhesive bonding and UV/thermal cure, mounting and torque, and alignment of freespace optics and fiber optic assemblies
• Design alignment fixtures, bonding and handling tooling, and ground support equipment (GSE) that protect sensitive optics while achieving required tolerances and repeatability
• Support the evaluation and selection of optical fabrication, assembly, and metrology equipment, and help develop the factory and cleanroom layout for in-house optics production
• Develop in-process inspections, optical metrology, and end-of-line test methods (e.g., interferometry, autocollimation, wavefront and alignment verification), ensuring accuracy and data traceability across all builds
• Create and maintain work instructions, travelers, and procedures in the MES; lead root cause analysis and corrective action for nonconformances on optical builds
• Support integration of optical assemblies with their electromechanical interfaces, including harnessing, sensor electronics, thermal management hardware, and machined structures
• Develop the subassembly build flow and iterate to create an efficient production flow, ensuring build times align with current takt times as production scales
• Support environmental acceptance and qualification test campaigns (e.g., thermal vacuum, vibration, thermal cycling) on optical assemblies from a build and test-readiness standpoint
• Partner with a team of optical manufacturing engineers to perform R&D of novel optics manufacturing and alignment technologies for current and future payloads

Skills

DFX guidance

Optical metrology

Cleanroom experience

GD&T reading

Production process development

First article builds

Education

Bachelor’s degree in electrical, optical mechanical, aero space, or other relevant engineering discipline

Tools

NX CAD

Zemax

Ansys

Python

LabVIEW

MATLAB

Job description

K2 Space in the United States seeks an Optical Manufacturing Engineer to bridge optical design and production, building first prototypes, defining build flow, tooling, and fixtures for space-qualified optics.

You will develop DOE/DFX practices, validate metrology, manage alignment methods, and scale processes to high-rate production on flight hardware within a growing space systems team.