Principal Dynamics Engineer

The Role

As a technical leader on our growing dynamics team, you will own the successful derivation of loads and environments for K2 Space satellites during ground transportation, launch, deployment, and on-orbit operation. You will build software tools and establish simulation workflows to support a variety of analyses in frequency and time domains. Within your first couple of months, you will devise development testing to correlate physics models with measured data. You will also own qualification and acceptance testing of satellite hardware at the component and vehicle level. As we continue to refine our designs and scale for the future, you will set technical direction, mentor junior engineers, and deliver well-derived requirements and engineering insights to make reliable and mass-producible spacecraft.

Responsibilities

• Drive the definition and execution of dynamic testing at the component, subsystem, vehicle, and stack level, including test planning and coordination, test analysis, and model correlation
• Lead innovation on cross-disciplinary analysis and test methodologies
• Own and evolve spacecraft dynamics approaches to optimize for the company’s business
• Develop time- and frequency-domain physics models using finite element analysis (e.g., Nastran) and custom-built software (e.g., Python), and set technical direction for shared analysis tooling, including version control and continuous-integration practices for analysis and test-data pipelines
• Create software tools to support data processing and simulation frameworks
• Collaborate with design engineers, analysts, and external customers to develop payload products
• Apply first principles in developing frameworks for both dynamics and non-dynamics analyses
• Lead code reviews for simulation and analysis tools
• Utilize analysis and test to provide data-driven engineering guidance and decisions
• Write high quality technical documentation of tests and simulations
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to junior and mid-level dynamics engineers, contributing to the growth of the analysis team
• Derive loads, environments, and other dynamics-driven design and test criteria for payload and hardware teams, including vibration, shock, and jitter maximum predicted environments and response-limit derivation (e.g., NASA 7004C), and develop new response-limiting methodologies as needed
• Own coupled loads analysis (CLA) for vehicle programs, including bus-and-payload superelement/Craig-Bampton model builds for ascent and on-orbit dynamic environments, through test-level definition
• Lead jitter and pointing performance analysis, including Monte Carlo dispersion modeling and dynamic coupling with GNC control loops
• Direct vibroacoustic analysis, including patch-method framework development, and lead acoustic testing of the vehicle
• Drive definition of vehicle- and stack-level modal test and analysis methodologies, including ground and flight test correlation

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, physics, or mathematics
• 8+ years of work experience in dynamics from industry or academia

Nice to have

• Master’s degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, physics, or mathematics
• Strong understanding of low and high frequency dynamics (vibration, acoustics, shock, modal testing)
• Deep experience with testing and measurements
• Deep experience with finite element analysis software (e.g. FEMAP, Nastran)
• Strong experience in software development in Python
• Deep knowledge of digital signal processing, statistics, and structural mechanics
• Capable of identifying and solving complex problems with little to no supervision or direction
• Excellent communication skills of analysis and test insights.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, unstructured start-up environment.
• Experience with coupled loads analysis (CLA) and Craig-Bampton/superelement model reduction techniques
• Experience with jitter and pointing performance analysis, including Monte Carlo methods for dispersion modeling
• Familiarity with rigid-body dynamics and GNC-coupled analysis, including dynamic coupling with controllers and pointing impacts
• Experience with multibody dynamics simulation, including rigid-body dynamics and familiarity with Lagrangian formulations; familiarity with LS-DYNA is a plus
• Experience with vibroacoustic analysis (e.g., patch, diffuse-field, Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA, e.g., Wave6), or Boundary Element Method (BEM))
• Familiarity with HALT/HASS testing and dynamics-driven PCBA-level failure mechanisms (e.g., solder joint fatigue, component lead flexure)
• Experience building and maintaining shared analysis tooling, including version control and continuous-integration practices

Compensation and Benefits:

• Base salary range for this role is $190,000 - $235,000 + equity in the company
• Salary will be based on several factors including, but not limited to: knowledge and skills, education, and experience level
• Comprehensive benefits package including paid time off, medical/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, paid parental leave, and many other perks