Principal Electrical Engineer, Space Products

The Company

Astra’s mission is to Improve Life on Earth from Space® by creating a healthier and more connected planet. Today, Astra offers one of the lowest cost-per-launch dedicated orbital launch services of any operational launch provider in the world, and one of the industry’s first flight-proven electric propulsion systems for satellites, Astra Spacecraft Engine™. Astra delivered its first commercial launch to low Earth orbit in 2021, making it the fastest company in history to reach this milestone, just five years after it was founded in 2016. Astra (NASDAQ: ASTR) was the first space launch company to be publicly traded on Nasdaq.

The Team

The space products engineering team is producing low-cost, reliable, highly efficient, Hall-effect thruster propulsion systems for modern satellites and spacecraft. Our thrusters will be used in Low Earth Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit, Geostationary Orbit, Lunar missions, and beyond. The team includes talented engineers who have designed and launched into orbit over 1,000 satellites over the course of their careers. Comprehensive design, prototype production, qualification, and acceptance tests are conducted within our Alameda, Mountain View and new Sunnyvale facilities. 

The Opportunity 

You will work with an interdisciplinary team of electrical engineers, systems engineers, propulsion engineers, mechanical engineers, and technicians to bring designs to life. This position will serve as the Electrical Architect for the Space Products group. New programs come in frequently. You will be a primary contributor on a team that develops new systems/modules and launches them into orbit.

How You'll Fulfill Your Mission

• Use your high-volume electronics experience to take Astra’s space products to the next level of design for manufacturing, cost, and scale
• Design development and production boards for electronics, including working on schematics, component selection, layout and analysis
• Build development boards and other prototype hardware
• Lead and / or support functional testing, board bring-up and performance tests of components, boards and integrated systems
• Perform Worst-Case Analysis
• Perform EMI/EMC/ESD tests
• Coordinate with mechanical analysis team to verify structural and thermal performance of designs over fatigue lifecycles and space environments

Why We Value You

• 15+ years of experience in electrical system and component design, integration and testing for space applications
• Experience with analog and low power circuit design
• Experience with DC-DC converters
• Experience with PCB layout in Altium or equivalent
• Experience with programming in C/C++/Python and/or MATLAB
• Simulation experience in spice and hyperlynx or equivalent
• The desire and aptitude to get your hands dirty by jumping in to help troubleshoot an issue, review or iterate a schematic, build a test harness, or write a test script
• You can critically analyze problems and are excited by new design challenges
• You are self-motivated and have excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related field

Desired Multipliers

• Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related field
• You have 10+ years of professional experience in electronics design
• Experience with power electronics
• Experience with requirements management in Jama, or equivalent
• Experience with startups, wearing-multiple-hats, and agile product development methodologies
• Experience with embedded software development, Linux scripting, and octave/matlab
• Experience with the Atlassian suite, most importantly Jira, and Confluence