Mechanisms Engineer II - Payloads

The role

You will develop electromechanical flight hardware for pharmaceutical manufacturing and hypersonic reentry testbed missions. You will take responsibility for payloads from concept through build, test, launch, and recovery.

What you will do

• Own payload hardware from concept through design, integration, launch, reentry, and recovery
• Design mechanisms, structures, thermal/fluid interfaces, and electromechanical assemblies
• Run structural, thermal, and fluid analyses
• Build, instrument, and test prototypes and flight hardware
• Work across avionics, software, thermal, systems, and integration teams to define interfaces
• Serve as the primary technical point of contact for assigned payloads
• Generate documentation including requirements, ICDs, procedures, and test reports
• Support mission operations and post-flight teardown
• Contribute to lessons learned and continuous improvement

Required qualifications

• BS/BEng in Mechanical, Aerospace, Mechatronics, or related engineering discipline
• 2+ years of design and analysis experience working on complex electro-mechanical hardware or comparable mechanisms
• Strong fundamentals in structures, heat transfer, fluids, and dynamics
• Hands-on experience designing, integrating, testing, and troubleshooting electromechanical hardware
• Ability to communicate effectively across disciplines

Nice to have

• Experience integrating electromechanical actuators, sensors, thermal control hardware and/or fluid control hardware
• Experience using CAD (NX preferred) and FEA (Ansys, Nastran)
• Exposure to aerospace environmental testing (vibration, TVAC, EMI/EMC)
• Customer-facing technical communication experience
• Ability to obtain a government security clearance

Benefits

• Stock options
• Long-term cash awards

Before you apply

• Must be a U.S. person (U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident, or protected individual)
• Must be lawfully authorized to work in the U.S.

About the company

Varda is accelerating the development of commercial space infrastructure, from in-orbit pharmaceutical processing to reliable and economical reentry capsules. The company is headquartered in El Segundo, California.