Manager, Mechanical Engineering (Starship Avionics)

MANAGER, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING (STARSHIP AVIONICS)

Starship Avionics Mechanical is responsible for producing an avionics system minimizing vehicle cost/mass and providing electrical sensing, actuation, and control for flying the vehicle. Avionics includes RF communication, navigation sensors, electrical actuators, video systems, propulsion sensors, and energy storage. This role leads a team of mechanical engineers, and it is within a larger avionics team of electrical engineers designing electrical system and vehicle operations. This role will partner closely with adjacent Starship engineering and production teams to continuously improve the design and manufacturability of avionics hardware for current and next-generation vehicles. Team mission is to develop highly producible mechanical designs and packaging solutions that protect electronics from the harsh mechanical and thermal environments of launch vehicle operations. 

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Extreme ownership of avionics engineers to enable the rapid progress of design, integration, test, and launch activities
• Drive conceptual design, architecture trades, and first order sizing. Develop design requirements where definition is lacking
• Optimize the development speed, mass, and cost on our avionics
• Perform in depth first principles analysis and FEA to assess and optimize designs
• Incorporate design for manufacturing principles, drive first article builds, and make improvements necessary to hand off subsequent builds to production
• Provide hands on support of production issues and drive design, process, and procedure improvements for maximum production efficiency and rate after first article build
• Design and execute development, acceptance, and qualification testing
• Drive delivery timeline through conception, design, parts, assembly and integration, and launch
• Work closely with analysts to develop thermal, vibration, and loading requirements and with manufacturing engineers to optimize designs for rapid manufacturability
• Hire and develop a team to produce reliable, high production rate, and low mass/cost avionics hardware

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree in an engineering, science, or math discipline
• 5+ years of professional experience with mechanical design of components or assemblies
• 3+ years of experience as leader with direct reports

PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

• Creative problem solver that can bring multiple disciplines together with the ability to assess risk and make design and development decisions without all available data
• Ability to work in a fast paced, autonomously driven, and demanding atmosphere
• Self-motivated with strong multi-tasking, organizational, communication and documentation skills
• Strong sense of accountability and integrity
• Solid understanding and application of GD&T
• Proficient and frequent use of hand calculations, finite element analyses (FEA), and computer-aided designs (CAD)

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

• This position is based in Starbase, TX and requires being onsite - remote work not considered
• Extended hours and weekend work may be required to support critical project and mission milestones