Thermal / Structures Engineer

You’ll own the environmental verification for our 2027 lunar payload, ensuring it withstands launch loads, landing shock, vacuum, and the thermal extremes of the lunar surface. This role is the analytical backbone of the team.

What you’ll do:

• Build and maintain the thermal model for the full payload, electronics thermal management, and lunar surface boundary conditions.
• Run structural FEA for launch vibration, acoustic loads, landing shock, and handling/transport.
• Drive design trades with the mechanical and avionics engineers: your models inform their decisions on materials, mounting, insulation, and heat rejection.
• Support thermal-vacuum and vibration test campaigns: predict performance, compare to test data.

What we’re looking for:

• Strong FEA background (ANSYS, Nastran, Abaqus, or similar) for both structural and thermal analysis.
• Experience with spacecraft or launch vehicle thermal environments: conduction networks, radiation exchange, transient analysis.
• Understanding of structural dynamics: random vibration, shock spectra, modal analysis, and how they drive hardware design.
• Ability to make engineering judgments under uncertainty: Class D means we accept more risk, but that requires knowing where the risk actually is.
• You’re using the latest AI tools every day (i.e., Opus 4.6/GPT 5.4, in appropriate harness) to massively increase your output and do things you otherwise couldn’t.
• You’ve built flight hardware before.

If you want to maximize the probability that humanity becomes interplanetary in your lifetime, apply and share a portfolio of the technical work you’re most proud of.

Interview Process

Four-stage interview:

1. Intro call

2. Take-home challenge (24 hours)

3. Onsite in SF

4. Offer