Client is a 12-person space infrastructure company building autonomous bio-factories in orbit — producing advanced materials and enabling drug discovery impossible on Earth. Two satellites launched, NASA TechLeap Prize winner, 8 more missions planned over the next two years. $30M funded, Series A incoming.
You'll own structural and thermal design end-to-end on their next generation of spacecraft. The critical question is yours to answer: will this vehicle survive?
What you'll do
Design primary structures, load paths, internal supports, and hard points; lead mass reduction efforts
Perform FEA, thermal modeling, and margin calculations using ANSYS to validate flight hardware
Select and evaluate materials — composites, ablatives, thermal barrier systems — for extreme environments
Develop and execute qualification test plans covering structural, thermal, vibration, and environmental testing
Collaborate closely with GNC, systems engineering, and manufacturing teams through to flight
3–8 years aerospace structures and/or thermal engineering with hands-on flight hardware experience
Personally designed hardware that flew — spacecraft, launch vehicle, reentry system, missile, or hypersonics; must be able to describe specific subsystem ownership in technical detail
Experience in high-temperature environments where thermal management was a primary design constraint
Background in composite structures, ablative materials, or thermal protection systems
BS or higher in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Physics
Details:
Full-time, 5 days on-site in Austin TX
$150K–$180K depending on experience + competitive equity
Must be a U.S. Person (citizen or permanent resident); no visa sponsorship
Not a fit:
Cannot describe specific hardware they personally designed — peripheral contributors to large programs are not a fit
Pure analysts with no hardware design or build experience
Legacy aerospace prime backgrounds with low ownership, slow-cadence program experience
A note for humans: Tired of competing with bots and fake profiles? So are we. If you're Austin, TX and know you fit this role, skip the queue — reach out to us via team@crestviewtalentlabs.com with your resume.