Electromechanical Packaging Engineer III - Electro-Optical Components

BLUE ORIGIN•Denver, CO

2d•$119,814 - $167,739

About The Position

Blue Origin is hiring an Electromechanical Packaging Engineer III for Blue National Security to design, develop, and deliver ruggedized electro-optical hardware for spacecraft and national security missions. The role owns electro-optical packaging from requirements through production and flight release, including modem processing and photonics units, transceivers, optical amplifier assemblies, chassis, stacked-unit architectures, fiber-optic integration, and spacecraft interfaces. The hardware must maintain thermal stability and precise optical interfaces while withstanding launch and on-orbit environments such as vibration, shock, radiation, and vacuum. The engineer serves as the senior technical voice for electro-optical packaging, setting design standards, analysis methods, and process baselines. The role works closely with electrical engineers, PCB designers, thermal engineers, harness designers, fabrication and assembly suppliers, and spacecraft-interface stakeholders. It includes mechanical and thermal design, analysis, requirements and interface ownership, production and qualification support, mentorship, and work in accordance with applicable security requirements. This position supports classified programs; candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance. An active clearance is preferred but not required, and sponsorship may be available.

Requirements

B.S. in Mechanical, Aerospace, Optical, or Photonics Engineering, or a related discipline.
3 to 5+ years designing electromechanical or electro-optical assemblies, electronics or photonics packaging, or comparable high-reliability hardware, with demonstrated ownership from requirements through production.
Hands-on experience packaging electro-optical hardware such as optical modems, transceivers, optical amplifier assemblies, photonic devices, lasers or detectors, or fiber-optic assemblies, including thermal, optical-interface, and contamination challenges.
Experience designing fiber management within constrained enclosures, including tray layout, routing, bend-radius and strain-relief strategy, splice retention, and connector selection.
Experience with thermal management of temperature-sensitive photonics, including TEC integration and thermal isolation.
Experience integrating PCB assemblies, connectors, and cable or fiber interfaces into mechanical assemblies, and collaborating closely with electrical engineers and PCB designers on dense, high-reliability boards, including layout reviews and component-selection input before layout lock.
Experience specifying mechanical and installation requirements for electrical harnesses.
Knowledge of ruggedized electronics and photonics design, including thermal management, structural protection, vibration and shock survival, vacuum compatibility, and EMI/EMC shielding, plus experience conducting or directing supporting analyses.
Ability to define and maintain mechanical and thermal interfaces with host vehicles and negotiate with adjacent optical, structural, and payload hardware teams.
Strong 3D CAD skills and command of GD&T, tolerance stack-ups, and ASME Y14.5 drawing practice.
Eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance.
Comfort working on fast-moving programs with evolving requirements and open trades, making defensible decisions with incomplete inputs and communicating technical risk clearly.

Nice To Haves

Active U.S. government security clearance.
M.S. in a relevant discipline.
Experience with optical communications hardware, including coherent or IM-DD transceivers, silicon photonics, optical modems, optical amplifiers, or pluggable form factors.
Experience building modems, transceivers, or optical terminal electronics to SIS-002, OpenZR+, SDA optical communications terminal standards, or CCSDS optical standards, and understanding how standards changes affect mechanical and thermal design.
Working knowledge of laser communications terminal architecture and coherent link building blocks, including integrated coherent receivers, modulators, tunable sources, and amplifiers, and their mechanical and thermal needs.
Experience developing hosted payloads or line-replaceable units against a spacecraft bus interface specification, and familiarity with spacecraft environmental specifications and qualification tailoring such as NASA GEVS and SMC-S-016, including payload isolation.
Experience maturing prototypes into producible, qualifiable flight products, including reconstructing design documentation for hardware not originally designed by the candidate.
Fiber-optic expertise in splicing, connector and termini selection (MIL-PRF-29504, ARINC 801), cleaning and inspection (IPC-8497-1), link-loss budgeting, IPC-A-620, and J-STD-001.
Experience with photonic and semiconductor assembly processes such as die attach, wire bond, flip chip, hermetic sealing, and fiber alignment.
Analysis experience in electronics thermal, structural, vibration, shock, or fatigue work, including solder-fatigue methods such as Steinberg or Engelmaier and FEA or thermal simulation in ANSYS or FloTHERM.
Hands-on familiarity with ECAD tools such as Altium or Mentor xPedition and PLM tools such as Windchill.
Familiarity with qualification and reliability standards such as Telcordia GR-468-CORE and GR-1221, MIL-STD-883, MIL-STD-1678, or JEDEC.
Experience with radiation-tolerant part selection and contamination control for space optics, including outgassing screening per ASTM E595.
Background in spacecraft, national-security space, human spaceflight, launch vehicle, or other extreme-environment hardware, ideally for long-duration or high-radiation missions beyond LEO.
Track record of mentoring engineers and building new design or analysis capability on a team.
Creo/Pro-E experience.

Responsibilities

Own complex packaging assemblies—including enclosures, chassis, card-cage and stacked-unit architectures, mounting systems, and fiber junction housings—from requirements through production support.
Lead mechanical and thermal design of modem processing and photonics units, integrating digital and photonics boards, electro-optic daughter cards, and power conversion slices into flight-qualifiable, mass- and volume-efficient packages.
Package optical amplifier and transceiver hardware, addressing optical power handling, fiber end-face reliability, hermeticity, and moisture control.
Develop thermal paths, mounting materials, heater placement, thermal isolation, and thermal control for temperature-sensitive photonics, including tunable lasers, modulators, and TEC-cooled devices.
Own fiber-optic tray design and internal fiber management, including layout, routing, bend-radius control, strain relief, splice retention, and connector selection; define splicing and workmanship processes and required equipment.
Define mechanical and installation requirements for electrical harnesses and carry them through detailed design with harness designers.
Collaborate with electrical engineers and PCB designers from architecture through layout, fabrication, and test; converge board outlines, component placement, heat-source placement, and connector locations, and advise on component and BOM decisions involving mechanical and thermal factors.
Define board-level protection and workmanship, including staking, conformal coating, bonding, and component restraint for vibration and shock.
Drive thermal, structural, vibration, shock, and fatigue analyses; own tolerance stack-ups and thermo-elastic stability budgets; and lead trade studies balancing performance, manufacturability, cost, schedule, and risk.
Own mechanical, thermal, environmental, EMC, mass, and envelope requirements; decompose host requirements into verifiable requirements, maintain traceability, and report mass properties against host allocations.
Negotiate host-vehicle accommodations, including mounting interfaces, mass and center-of-gravity envelopes, thermal limits, and dynamic environment levels; quantify and close gaps between existing hardware qualification and host specifications.
Deliver models, drawings, specifications, release packages, and mechanical and thermal interface control documents; apply GD&T per ASME Y14.5.
Address contamination control, outgassing, hermeticity, and radiation-induced fiber attenuation; support radiation and reliability teams with part selection and long-lead procurement.
Apply design-for-manufacturing and design-for-assembly practices, specify fiber and optical assembly processes, and partner with suppliers on producibility.
Own test and integration support, including fixtures and optical loopback setups, and shape environmental test campaigns from planning through anomaly closeout.
Mentor engineers, lead design reviews, and build team capability in electro-optical packaging.
Perform work in accordance with applicable security requirements, protecting classified information and controlled technical data.

Benefits

Medical insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
Basic and supplemental life insurance
Paid parental leave
Short- and long-term disability
401(k) with company match up to 5%
Education Support Program
Stock options for regular employees working at least 20 hours per week
Paid time off up to four weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours
Up to 14 company-paid holidays
Depending on role type and job level, potential eligibility for benefits and bonuses tied to individual contributions or company results; amounts and eligibility are not guaranteed