Senior R&D Engineer, Space PV Product Design & Prototyping

Tandem PV, Inc.; Fremont (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Tandem PV, Inc. in Fremont, California, is seeking a Senior R&D Engineer, Space PV Product Design & Prototyping, to turn our perovskite cell technology into prototype space power products—lightweight, flexible PV modules for spacecraft.

You will own the design from layout to laminate stack, build and test prototypes with technicians, interface with suppliers and external partners for environmental testing, and drive design iteration.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on hardware or product design experience with prototypes.
• Experience turning cell or module concepts into physical prototypes and test articles.
• Experience in design ownership from concept through build and test cycles.
• Ability to create and maintain CAD models, drawings, and BOMs.

Responsibilities

• Define prototype requirements and verification plans with the program team.
• Design module layouts, interconnects, and mechanical laminate stack-ups.
• Build and test ultrathin, flexible parts with technicians.
• Plan design verification campaigns and analyze failures for redesign.
• Create design documentation, DFMEA, build travelers and test reports.

Skills

Prototype design

Design ownership

Systems integration

Technical writing

Team collaboration

Education

Mechanical, electrical, aerospace or related engineering degree

Tools

SolidWorks

Creo

Fusion

Job description

At Tandem PV, we are a team of people who are passionate about building a more sustainable world by bringing cost effective solar panels onto the market. We’re scaling metal-halide perovskite solar technology to make best-in-class mechanically stacked tandem modules. We have built efficient, durable cells, monolithic multi-cell submodules, and packaged modules with our scalable, low-cost process. Our next focus is expanding our team to work in our new pilot manufacturing facility.

Job Summary

As a Senior R&D Engineer, Space PV Product Design & Prototyping, you will turn our perovskite cell technology into prototype space power products: lightweight, flexible photovoltaic modules and test articles for spacecraft, where the figure of merit is watts per kilogram rather than watts per square meter. You will own the product design, from module layout and electrical architecture through the laminate stack, interconnects, mounting and terminations, and you will build, test and iterate prototypes hands-on with our technicians and process team. You will also be the technical interface to component suppliers and to the external partners who perform environmental testing on your designs.

To be great at this role, you will

• Define prototype requirements with the program team (power, voltage, area, mass, stowage and operating environment) and translate them into design specifications and a verification plan.
• Design module and coupon layouts: cell sizing and interconnect architecture, scribe and busbar patterns, string voltage and current, bypass and blocking protection, and terminations.
• Design the mechanical build: laminate stack-up of cover, encapsulant, cell and substrate; edge seals; mounting to carriers, panels or flexible blankets; and harnessing and connectors, managing thermal expansion mismatch, stress and warp in low-stiffness structures.
• Create and maintain CAD models, drawings, bills of materials, and mass and thickness budgets, and report performance in specific-power (W/kg) and areal-mass terms.
• Build prototypes hands-on with technicians, and design the fixtures, jigs, masks and tooling needed to assemble, handle and test ultrathin and flexible parts.
• Plan and run design verification (AM0 current-voltage, electroluminescence imaging, flex and bend, thermal cycling) and prepare pre-test baselines for external UV, radiation, vacuum and vibration campaigns; analyze failures and feed the findings into the next design iteration.
• Work with process engineers to set design rules and tolerances that our cell deposition and laser patterning processes can reliably meet.
• Own design documentation to design-review standard (requirements, drawings, DFMEA, build travelers and test reports), write build instructions and train technicians, and support government program reviews and reporting.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on hardware or product design experience, including building and testing prototypes).
• Degree in mechanical, electrical, aerospace or materials engineering, applied physics, or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Demonstrated design ownership of electromechanical or photovoltaic hardware from concept through prototype build and test; you have taken a design through at least one full cycle of build, test, failure analysis and redesign.
• Proficiency with 3D CAD (e.g., SolidWorks, Creo or Fusion) and engineering drawing practice, including tolerancing for thin, compliant parts.
• PV electrical design fundamentals: series and parallel architecture, mismatch and shading losses, reverse bias and bypass protection, and current-voltage characterization.
• Thermomechanical judgement: thermal expansion mismatch across dissimilar-material joints, stress and warp in thin laminates, and why a joint that survives terrestrial cycling may not survive an orbital one.
• Structured test planning and data analysis: defined acceptance criteria, controls and clear decisions from small, expensive sample sets.
• Comfort working hands-on in a small team where prototypes are few and expensive, the plan has to be right before the build starts, and priorities shift as results come in.
• Clear technical writing and meticulous records: drawings and build instructions others can follow correctly without you present.

Preferred Experience

• Space solar array, flexible PV or spacecraft hardware design, including qualification practice (e.g., AIAA S-111/S-112 or ECSS-E-ST-20-08), AM0 measurement, ASTM E595 outgassing, thermal cycling and launch vibration.
• Perovskite, thin-film or tandem PV device and module experience, including laser-scribed monolithic interconnection.
• Aerospace or government R&D program experience, such as design reviews, DFMEA, configuration control and federal proposals.
• Flexible circuits, interconnect welding or soldering, or hermetic and thin-film encapsulation.

This position may require access to technology and/or technical data subject to U.S. export-control laws. Any eligibility or access requirements will be applied in accordance with applicable U.S. export-control laws, regulations, licenses or authorizations, government-contract requirements, and applicable anti-discrimination laws.

Tandem PV uses perovskite & silicon mechanically-stacked tandems to upgrade silicon solar panels, sharply decreasing installed systems costs, significantly increasing module manufacturing profit margins, and opening up vast new solar markets in the US and worldwide. TPV was co-founded by Stanford PhDs Colin Bailie and Chris Eberspacher; is advised by industry experts from Corning, First Solar, Vivint Solar, and Kateeva; has raised more than $50M in Series A funding. We were recently recognized as the Best Pre-Commercial Venture of 2025 by the Industry Growth Forum (IGF)

We are a team of people who are passionate about building a more sustainable world by delivering a new generation of solar panels to the market. We are constantly growing and are always looking for dedicated, hardworking, and empathetic teammates.

Tandem PV is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply.