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Salary: USD 100,800 - 126,000 / annual
Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems for missions ranging from interplanetary exploration to national security and defense. The Space Systems team has enabled over 1,700 missions and works with partners including NASA, the Space Development Agency, and the U.S. Space Force.
The Harness Design Engineer II role is based at Rocket Lab's headquarters in Long Beach, CA, and focuses on the design of electrical harnesses for spacecraft and space systems. The position combines harness design responsibilities with avionics engineering support.
Harness Design Responsibilities:
- Perform or support design tasks including harness layout, connector and back shell selection, wire selection, and shielding for spacecraft
- Generate pinout tables for harness connectors based on spacecraft interconnect diagrams
- Create and maintain bills of materials (BOMs) for harnesses in the product lifecycle management (PLM) tool
- Assist in creating documentation for electrical system schematics and harness designs
Avionics Responsibilities:
- Develop test plans and procedures for avionics subsystems and components
- Perform analysis and evaluations to optimize spacecraft avionics circuits for performance, reliability, and manufacturability
- Participate in internal design and customer-facing review meetings as a representative of the avionics electrical engineering team
- Work in multi-disciplinary teams to assist in design of electronic assemblies for satellite and spacecraft programs
The role involves heavy involvement in electronics and will provide exposure to circuit design, analysis, prototyping, and testing activities. You will work with spacecraft engineering teams to ensure accurate CAD models and support the execution of electrical engineering activities across space systems components.
QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED:
- Bachelor's degree in aerospace, mechanical, electrical engineering, or other engineering discipline
- 2+ years of electrical engineering or avionics experience
- US citizenship required due to program requirements (ITAR compliance)
QUALIFICATIONS PREFERRED:
- Master's or PhD in aerospace, mechanical, electrical engineering, or related field
- Experience in the aerospace/defense industry
- Experience supporting satellite development programs and satellite operations
- Thorough understanding of space environment, orbital mechanics, and rigid body dynamics
- Experience with LT Spice, Altium, and/or Siemens software suite (Teamcenter)
- Experience with requirement management tools such as JAMA
- Experience with testing electrical subsystems and assemblies, thermal vacuum or random vibration testing, and hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) testing
- Proficiency in electronics principles and electrical systems, including power electronics, communication systems (RS-422, SPI, Ethernet, CAN bus), signal integrity, and grounding
- Proficiency with instrumentation, interfaces, and sensors, including power supplies, oscilloscopes, serial devices, accelerometers, thermocouples, RTDs, and 4-20mA sensors
- Ability to work in a dynamic environment with competing priorities
