Principal Automation & Controls Engineer

K2 Space•Los Angeles, CA

About The Position

K2 is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown, unlocking performance levels previously out of reach across every orbit. Backed by $450M from leading investors including Altimeter Capital, Redpoint Ventures, T. Rowe Price, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Alpine Space Ventures, and others – with an additional $500M in signed contracts across commercial and US government customers – we’re mass-producing the highest-power satellite platforms ever built for missions from LEO to deep space. The rise of heavy-lift launch vehicles is shifting the industry from an era of mass constraint to one of mass abundance, and we believe this new era demands a fundamentally different class of spacecraft. Engineered to survive the harshest radiation environments and to fully capitalize on today’s and tomorrow’s massive rockets, K2 satellites deliver unmatched capability at constellation scale and across multiple orbits. With multiple launches planned through 2026 and 2027, we're Building Bigger to develop the solar system and become a Kardashev Type II (K2) civilization. If you are a motivated individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment and you're excited about contributing to the success of a groundbreaking Series C space startup, we’d love for you to apply. The Role You’ll be at the heart of bringing the production system to life. K2 has a strong push to vertically integrate our production system, which means you’ll work side-by-side with the production and engineering team to concept, develop, and roll out various automation projects to support this vision. At a principal level, you’ll not just be implementing automation and controls projects, you’ll help shape how K2 approaches these types of projects – setting standards, requirements, design process, and determining what automation looks like at K2. This role is built for someone who wants to help own the future of satellite manufacturing, thrives in a fast-paced environment, and wants to take high levels of ownership You’ll draw on your deep technical intuition, contribute to systems that scale, and have core impact in increasingly complex challenges as we push towards higher-rate production in an environment unlike anywhere else.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, manufacturing, aerospace, materials or other relevant engineering discipline
4+ years of experience in a high-volume manufacturing, production, or hands-on engineering environment
6+ years of experience working in industrial automation and controls in a production environment, including full-stack ownership
Strong hands-on aptitude and willingness to work directly with hardware on the production floor
In-depth knowledge of precision assembly and electromechanical fabrication processes
Ability to generate and review engineering drawings, schematics, and technical documentation
Experience setting up a manufacturing/production floor for first article builds through at rate production

Nice To Haves

Full-stack and state of the art experience with industrial automation hardware & controls, PLC/HMI/Robotics software control stacks, electrical and fluid schematics
Exposure to space, defense, or other high-reliability manufacturing environments
Experience designing automation systems 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
Familiarity with CAD software (NX or equivalent) and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T)

Responsibilities

Own the company roadmap of production automation across hardware and control layers, working closely with mechanical, electrical, and production engineers
Conceive, design, and develop production tooling electromechanical automation assemblies either in-house or through vendors
Own hands-on buildout, activation, and qualification of automation and controls projects across the production line spanning machine design, robotics, computer vision, and other systems
Shape and implement our HMI strategy and PLC automation in a way that makes machines easy to operate with repeatable results
Understand build flow, production reliability, and process control to implement strategies to increase production takt rate and first pass yield
Mentor and develop junior engineers, raising the technical bar across the team to help achieve our automation and production goals