Spacecraft Structures Engineer II - Layout & Flight-Ready

Katalyst Space; Broomfield (CO); On-site; USD 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation bonus

Employee stock options

Comprehensive medical/vision/dental

Unlimited Paid Time Off

Job summary

Katalyst Space in the United States is seeking a Mechanical Engineer II to design and optimize spacecraft structures and payload packaging. You will balance mass, interfaces, and manufacturability from concept through flight readiness, working across avionics, propulsion, thermal, and GNC teams.

The role requires a strong CAD background, hand calculations, and FEA experience, with a focus on high-reliability aerospace hardware in a fast-paced team environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or Aerospace Engineering.
• 3-4 years designing, packaging, analyzing, and releasing mechanical hardware for spacecraft, launch vehicles, aircraft, robotics, or related high-reliability products.
• Proficiency with 3D CAD for complex assemblies and top-level layouts, including configuration management and drawings release.
• Strong fundamentals in statics, dynamics, materials, load paths, vibration, thermal effects, and failure modes.

Responsibilities

• Support spacecraft and payload mechanical layout from concept to flight, balancing packaging, mass properties, interfaces, manufacturability and schedule.
• Develop and maintain CAD assemblies, vehicle envelopes, coordinate systems, keep-out zones, interfaces, and layouts as mechanical source of truth.
• Design primary and secondary spacecraft structures, brackets, panels, decks, mounts, and interfaces using load-path, stiffness, fatigue and thermal-vibration considerations.
• Perform hand calculations and FEA to assess static strength, modal behavior, vibration, and shock; correlate with test data to drive decisions.
• Advance packaging trades across avionics, harnessing, propulsion, GNC, thermal, payloads, and structures amidst constraints.
• Collaborate with manufacturing to support prototype and flight builds, resolve drawing issues, improve DFM/DFA, ensure producibility.
• Contribute to design reviews, failure analyses, mass-property tracking, and flight-readiness documentation.

Skills

3D CAD proficiency

Hand calculations

FEA analysis

Cross-functional collaboration

Mechanical fundamentals

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or Aerospace Engineering

Tools

SolidWorks

CAD software suite

Job description

Katalyst Space in the United States is seeking a Mechanical Engineer II to design and optimize spacecraft structures and payload packaging. You will balance mass, interfaces, and manufacturability from concept through flight readiness, working across avionics, propulsion, thermal, and GNC teams.

The role requires a strong CAD background, hand calculations, and FEA experience, with a focus on high-reliability aerospace hardware in a fast-paced team environment.