Thermal Engineer

Apply on YC · Original job listing

• Role: Engineering / Mechanical
• Experience: 3+ years
• Visa: US citizen/visa only

About the role

You'll be our first thermal engineer and the person responsible for the thermal architecture of Spark-1, a 150 kg reentry vehicle that hosts payloads in orbit and brings them back to Earth. This is a founding role. You'll decide where heat goes on the vehicle: which surfaces radiate, how heat moves from the electronics and payloads to those surfaces, what gets heaters and what gets isolated, and how the architecture holds up across orbit cases, safe mode, and reentry.

At our stage that means you build the models, set the requirements, and then put the hardware in the chamber yourself. You'll work directly with the founders every day.

Responsibilities

• Define the spacecraft thermal architecture and carry it from trade studies through CDR and into flight

• Build and own the vehicle thermal model in Thermal Desktop, Simcenter Space Systems Thermal, or ESATAN-TMS

• Design the thermal control hardware, including heaters and control zones, radiators, MLI, coatings, straps, and the conductive paths through structure

• Define payload thermal interfaces and the thermal section of the payload user's guide

• Work the couplings with the other subsystems, since attitude drives the sun cases, the power budget drives dissipation, and the heat shield sets the reentry boundary

• Plan and run thermal balance and thermal vacuum tests, correlate the model, and carry the margins to flight

Required qualifications