Electric Propulsion Engineer, Mechanical (Starshield)

SpaceX•Hawthorne, CA

6d•$120,000 - $170,000•Onsite

About The Position

Starshield leverages SpaceX's Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts. While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on earth observation, communications, and hosted payloads. SpaceX is hiring an Electric Propulsion Engineer to join a collaborative engineering team working on design, analysis, build, and test of flight-qualified satellite electric propulsion systems for in-space constellations. In this role you will contribute end-to-end hardware ownership—from design through production support and qualification—for propulsion systems that must meet demanding flight reliability requirements through iterative design, test, and refinement.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, aerospace, physics, or other engineering discipline
3+ years of total experience in one or a combination of the following: professional experience designing, testing, and analyzing electric propulsion systems; or related spacecraft propulsion, fluid, pressure, plasma, or thruster-adjacent hardware experience (e.g., thermal, structural, power, or diagnostics for EP/plasma systems)

Nice To Haves

Demonstrated delivery of hardware for high-reliability or safety-critical use
Working knowledge of structural design, materials properties, thermodynamics, fluid/pressure/vacuum systems, and numerical analysis programming (e.g., Python, MATLAB); plasma physics as applicable (depth in several of these areas is valued; mastery of all is not expected)
Experience prioritizing concurrent design, build, and test work against flight and production milestones
Clear documentation habits and attention to detail appropriate for flight hardware
Track record of improving designs and processes for reliability, rate, or quality
Active Top Secret or Top Secret/SCI clearance, or ability and willingness to obtain a Top Secret clearance, is desired but not required

Responsibilities

Design, analyze, test, and provide operational support for high-volume production spacecraft electric propulsion hardware
Partner with manufacturing to ensure designs enable efficient, reliable, high-rate production
Design, build, modify, operate, and troubleshoot electric propulsion test facilities, including vacuum chambers, pressure systems, cryogenic pumps, data acquisition and control systems, and associated instrumentation
Analyze and review test data with numerical tools to confirm hardware is operating as expected and inform design decisions
Lead root-cause investigations and component redesigns to improve reliability and/or production rates
Develop and execute qualification test plans for flight readiness (vibration, shock, thermal cycle, life cycle, fault injection)
Make rigorous, risk-informed trades across cost, lead time, reliability, and performance to meet program reliability targets for mission-critical flight hardware
Own critical spaceflight hardware end-to-end, with support from manufacturing, reliability, test, and operations teams
Work as an integrated team, with daily interactions among technicians, engineers, and managers; identify and implement design and process improvements
Communicate clearly under ambiguity, escalate technical and schedule risks early, and collaborate through disagreement

Benefits

comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage
access to a 401(k) retirement plan
short and long-term disability insurance
life insurance
paid parental leave
various other discounts and perks
3 weeks of paid vacation
10 or more paid holidays per year
paid sick leave
long-term incentives, in the form of company stock or long-term cash awards
potential discretionary bonuses
ability to purchase additional stock at a discount through an Employee Stock Purchase Plan