Thermal Associate Engineer (Winter 2027)
Job Description
<div class="content-intro"><p>Astranis builds advanced satellites for high orbits, expanding humanity’s reach into the solar system. Today Astranis satellites provide dedicated, secure networks to highly-sophisticated customers across the globe – large enterprises, sovereign governments, and the US military. </p> <p>With five satellites on orbit and many more set to launch soon, the company is servicing a backlog of more than $1 billion of commercial contracts. Astranis is the preferred satellite communications partner for buyers with stringent requirements for uptime, data security, network visibility, and customization.</p> <p>Astranis has raised over $1.2 billion from some of the world’s best investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Blackrock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, and Snowpoint, and employs a team of 500 engineers and entrepreneurs. Astranis designs, builds, and operates its satellites out of its 153,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Northern California, USA.</p></div><div class="section page-centered"> <div class="section page-centered"> <h4>Thermal Engineer Associate (Winter 2027)</h4> <div>Associate Engineer positions typically last for twelve weeks, and are salaried roles designed for students who have already received a bachelor's degree (or who will have done so before working at Astranis). </div> <div> </div> <div> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As an Associate Engineer, you will have an amazing opportunity to work on hard problems — we pride ourselves on giving everyone at Astranis a chance to do meaningful work on </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">complex</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> projects, and our Associate Engineers work on projects that are of equal importance and difficulty to the projects we give our full-time employees. Many past Associate Engineers have designed and tested hardware/software that is heading to space on our first satellite, and many now work at Astranis full-time. </span></p> </div> <div> </div> <div>If you are still a college student, please apply to join us as an Intern.</div> </div> <div class="section page-centered"> <div> <h4>Role</h4> <ul> <li>Work together with the engineering team to design, analyze, build, and test satellite hardware and/or software.</li> <li>Support design trades that successfully balance performance margins, resource use, risk, cost, and schedule.</li> <li>Perform thermal analysis to varying degrees of fidelity (simplified to detailed) on a variety of different types of hardware such as propulsion components, batteries, high powered electronics, RF components, mechanisms, and printed circuit boards (PCBs).</li> <li>Design, evaluate, procure and test thermal solutions such as heaters, heat pipes, thermal interface materials, and surface coatings.</li> <li>Develop processes and procedures for integration and assembly which ensure thermal design intent is met. Collaborate with the integration and test team in the installation of thermal hardware as needed.</li> <li>Plan and run thermal vacuum testing and verification at the component and spacecraft level.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <div class="section page-centered"> <div> <h4>Requirements</h4> <ul> <li>Have a four-year degree in mechanical, aerospace, or equivalent technical degree (e.g. physics or applied math)</li> <li>A passion and enthusiasm for hardware development, including working in a fast-paced environment and hands-on design and development</li> <li>Demonstrated ability to personally design, build, and test hardware from scratch.</li> <li>US Citizenship or Green Card</