Optomechanical Engineer

San Francisco Bay Area

This is an optical communications company building high bandwidth infrastructure for environments fibre cannot reach. That spans LEO constellations, lunar missions, GEO satcom, deployable optical ground for defence, and data centres on and off world.

They are developing compact modular optical terminals small enough to deploy from a backpack, alongside space terminals supporting high speed links from LEO out to the Moon.

This role owns the productisation of compact pointing, acquisition and tracking optomechanical subsystems across their modular ground stations and space terminals. You take fine steering and coarse pointing systems from commercial prototype through field qualification, holding microradian class stability whatever the weather or platform.

• Design optomechanical assemblies for beam steering, covering gimbals, fast steering mirrors, telescope mounts, relay optics and fibre coupling stages
• Perform structural, thermal and STOP analysis to verify line of sight stability and wavefront error budgets
• Develop pointing error budgets covering base motion, jitter, thermal drift and control loop residuals, and flow them down to component requirements
• Design, select and qualify actuators, encoders, bearings and flexures for ground and space environments
• Lead alignment, integration and test of optical assemblies in the field
• Support acquisition and tracking field campaigns at ground station sites, troubleshooting under real atmospheric conditions
• Work with software, electrical and network engineers to close the loop between lab based mechanical design and autonomous optical communications with space assets

• Someone with 3 or more years of optomechanical design experience on precision optical systems, such as laser communications, telescopes or directed energy
• A BSc or MS in mechanical engineering, optical engineering, aerospace engineering or a related field
• Proficiency with CAD such as Solid Works, NX or Creo, and FEA tools such as ANSYS or Nastran
• Hands on experience aligning and testing optical assemblies in a lab
• Working knowledge of GD&T, tolerance analysis and precision machining practices
• Someone comfortable working in the field, not only at a bench
• Useful extras: fast steering mirrors, gimbal design or telescope pointing systems, STOP analysis workflows, Zemax, Optic Studio or CODE V, qualifying hardware for launch and on orbit environments, field experience with optical ground stations or astronomical instrumentation

Generous equity. Healthcare with vision and dental options. 401k. Unlimited PTO. This is an onsite role with some travel for field deployment and vendor visits. To conform to US export regulations, applicants must be a US citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident, a protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorisations from the Department of State.