Senior Mechanical Engineer, Solar Deployables (Hybrid)

Muon Space; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 183,000 - 198,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity grant

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401k

Paid vacation

Paid holidays

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Muon Space is seeking a Senior Mechanical Engineer to design deployable structures for solar arrays and to own the structural, dynamic, and thermoelastic analyses ensuring launch survivability and orbit performance.

You will work with mechanisms and photovoltaics leads, collaborate with a dedicated structural analysis group, and help scale from prototypes to constellation production in a hybrid on-site role in San Jose.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience designing, building, and testing high-reliability hardware including 5+ years of structural analysis.
• Proven track record designing precision mechanical or deployable hardware from concept through qualification.
• Strong command of structural FEA — static, modal, and random vibration — using FEMAP/NASTRAN, ANSYS, or similar.

Responsibilities

• Design deployable structures and supporting hardware for Muon's solar arrays, from concept and trade studies through detailed design, prototyping, and qualification.
• Own the structural, dynamic, and thermoelastic analyses of your designs, and support analysis across the group’s arrays and mechanisms.
• Perform structural FEA — static, modal, random vibration, and shock — and analyze deployment dynamics, kinematics, and margin of margins
• Partner with the structural analysis group to understand interactions between solar arrays and the spacecraft bus — interface loads and stiffness requirements
• Build and test prototypes; support deployment testing with gravity offload and environmental test campaigns (vibration, TVAC, shock)
• Correlate analysis models against test data and iterate designs based on results
• Produce and release engineering documentation: drawings, GD&T, BOMs, and analysis reports under configuration control
• Deliver design and analysis packages for design reviews (PDR, CDR, MRR) and document margins and best practices
• Support designs from prototype through constellation-scale production

Skills

Structural analysis

FEA

CAD design

Deployable hardware

Vibration testing

Thermoelastic analysis

Documentation & reporting

Team collaboration

Education

B.S. or higher in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering

Tools

FEMAP/NASTRAN

ANSYS

SolidWorks

Job description

Muon Space is seeking a Senior Mechanical Engineer to design deployable structures for solar arrays and to own the structural, dynamic, and thermoelastic analyses ensuring launch survivability and orbit performance.

You will work with mechanisms and photovoltaics leads, collaborate with a dedicated structural analysis group, and help scale from prototypes to constellation production in a hybrid on-site role in San Jose.