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Salary: USD 100,000 - 140,000 / annual
K2 Space is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown, backed by over $1 billion in total funding from leading investors including Altimeter Capital, ICONIQ, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and T. Rowe Price. The company has over $1 billion in signed contracts across commercial and US government customers and is mass-producing the highest-power satellite platforms ever built for missions from LEO to deep space. With multiple launches planned for 2027 and plans to scale to 100 satellites per year, K2 is at the forefront of a new era of spacecraft engineering.
In this role, you will partner with design engineers early in the development process to ensure manufacturability, build the first prototype, design the build flow and fixturing, and finalize the process for transition to production. You will test out new techniques for manufacturing large satellite structures, harnessing, mechanisms, and integrated electronics systems.
In your first 6 months, you will develop manufacturing methods and tooling for integrated avionics systems, define manufacturing flows for subsystems, and collaborate with design teams to improve the manufacturability of spacecraft components. In your first year, you will implement these advanced manufacturing techniques on flight hardware and transition the technology you develop to production.
Key responsibilities include:
- Collaborating with design engineers to ensure design for manufacturability for initial design, flight hardware, and tooling
- Developing innovative manufacturing systems for large spacecraft assemblies, including electromechanical sub-assemblies, harnessing, welded/bolted structures, and mechanisms
- Creating custom tools and processes to support the manufacturing technologies you create, including Manufacturing Execution System (MES) software
- Demonstrating advanced manufacturing techniques on prototypes and working with design teams to improve manufacturability
- Developing the subassembly build flow and iterating to create an efficient production flow for the satellite
- Partnering with a team of advanced manufacturing engineers to perform R&D of novel manufacturing technologies for current and future spacecraft products
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in electrical, mechanical, aerospace, or other relevant engineering discipline
- 3+ years of experience in a high-volume, rapid production environment in a manufacturing, integration, and/or design engineering role
- Demonstrated results with product development and/or process improvements
- Experience setting up a manufacturing/production floor for first article builds
- Experience designing and implementing technologies for avionics subassembly manufacturing, including wire harness manufacturing and PCBA/mechanical enclosure assembly
Nice to have:
- Experience designing tooling for mechanical subassemblies and electronics
- Experience designing hardware for manufacturability
- Demonstrated experience developing production processes from the ground up, including driving design improvements for manufacturing
- Experience working closely with technicians and build tooling
- Experience with aerospace manufacturing standards such as soldering standards, torque specifications, welding standards, and quality assurance standards
- Familiarity with CAD software (NX or equivalent) and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T)
- Experience working with MES to set up the foundation for procedure creation and documenting non-conformances
Note: This role requires U.S. Person status as defined by ITAR (U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, or certain protected individuals) or eligibility for a federally issued export control license.
