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

Tandem PV, Inc.; Iowa (LA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Tandem PV, Inc. in the United States is seeking a Senior R&D Engineer, Space PV Product Design & Prototyping to turn our perovskite cell tech into prototype space power products: lightweight, flexible photovoltaic modules and test articles for spacecraft, where watts per kilogram matter more than watts per square meter.

You will own the design from module layout and electrical architecture through laminate stack, interconnects, mounting and terminations, and you will build, test and iterate

Qualifications

• Hands-on hardware or product design experience, including building prototypes.
• Degree in mechanical, electrical, aerospace or materials engineering, applied physics, or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Demonstrated design ownership from concept through prototype build and test.
• Proficiency with 3D CAD and engineering drawing practice, including tolerancing for thin parts.
• PV electrical design fundamentals and current-voltage characterization.
• Thermomechanical judgement for dissimilar-material joints and thin laminates.
• Structured test planning and data analysis with clear decisions from small sample sets.
• Comfort working hands-on in a small team with shifting priorities.

Responsibilities

• Define prototype requirements (power, voltage, area, mass, environment) and translate into design specs and verification plans.
• Design module and coupon layouts, interconnects, terminations and bypass protections.
• Design the mechanical stack-up, edge seals, mounting, and harnessing for carriers and flexible blankets.
• Create and maintain CAD models, drawings, BOMs and performance metrics (W/kg, areal-mass).
• Build prototypes with technicians and design fixtures, jigs and tooling for ultrathin parts.
• Plan and run design verification and prepare pre-test baselines for environmental campaigns; analyze failures and iterate designs.
• Work with process engineers to set design rules and tolerances for deposition and laser patterning processes.
• Own design documentation, train technicians, write build travelers and support government reviews.

Skills

Hardware design

Prototype testing

3D CAD

PV design fundamentals

Thermomechanics

Test planning

Technical writing

Education

Mechanical or aerospace engineering degree

Tools

SolidWorks

Creo

Fusion 360

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.