Senior Mechanical Engineer

Senior Mechanical Engineer Design and validate spacecraft structural components for high-altitude space deployment

Location:

Mountain View, California, United States

Salary: $181, USD / year

Muon seeks a Senior Mechanical Engineer to join our team. The ideal candidate can go deep on design and analysis but also has a systems mindset and will be a force multiplier collaborating with other disciplines to arrive at an elegant, well-balanced design. As an early‑stage startup with a small team, breadth is extremely important and we expect this person to dive into structural data, dynamics, thermal design, supplier management and everything else associated with the full lifecycle of an electromechanical product.

Due to the hands‑on nature of this role, on‑site work at our Mountain View location is required.

• Create, review, and refine spacecraft mechanical design with product structure in a modern CAD package (Solid Works).
• Own the delivery of mechanical vehicles and subsystems, acting on multidisciplinary designs between launch provider, analysts, avionics, program, thermal, optical, and RF engineers.
• Find solutions and manage development of clean‑sheet mechanical / structures architectures through detailed design consistent with the risk posture, development velocity and deployment schedules at Muon.
• Make economically sound choices for the company balancing the need to quickly demonstrate capability while understanding the path to scaled‑up constellations (e.g., Make vs. Buy).
• Create quick concepts that can be used to discuss and spur inspiration on the team in early phases of programs.
• Perform basic stress and dynamic analyses (hand calculations, simple FEM) to support and inform structures designs including joint design, basic stiffness analyses, etc.
• Contribute to maturing Muon's mechanical engineering standards and culture.
• Design basic test fixtures to support development and environmental testing.
• Influence flight designs to ensure hardware is easy to both build and test.

• 6+ years experience designing, building, or testing flight hardware in the space industry or a related field such as aerospace or autonomous systems.
• B.S. or higher degree in Mechanical Engineering.
• Some experience as an individual‑contributor structural/mechanical engineer.
• Design of components and assemblies in CAD.
• Understanding of drawings, GTOLs, and BOMs.
• Excellent communication, presentation, coordination skills and curiosity.
• Dedication to drawing conclusions on the most important factors and data.
• Excited to work in a fast‑paced environment with new opportunities each week.

• Experience with solar arrays, SADAs, and composite materials.
• Experience designing and executing structural tests for spacecraft.
• Large assembly management in Solid Works PDM, Duro PLM.
• Proficiency with Google Workspace (Sheets, Slides, Docs) and Slack.
• Mechanical management of a product or system.
• Experience running structural analyses for spacecraft (FEMAP, ANSYS).
• Experience managing external vendors for part prototyping and development.
• Optomechanical instrument design.
• Software skills in one or more of Python, MATLAB, C, C++.
• Experience working on thermal management systems for spacecraft.
• Shipped hardware designed for spacecraft, aircraft, automotive or similar environments.

• Competitive equity grant.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) retirement plan.
• Short‑term and long‑term disability and life insurance.
• Three weeks paid vacation for new employees.
• Twelve paid holidays.
• Unlimited sick time and paid parental leave.

We believe in equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, age, national origin, citizenship, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or gender identity. We value diversity in the workplace and encourage applicants who do not check all the boxes to apply.

This position requires access to export‑controlled information. To comply with U.S. Government export regulations, the applicant must be a U.S. person (citizen, permanent resident, refugee, or asylee) or otherwise eligible to access such information without a required export authorization, as outlined in the U.S. export licensing rules.