Principal Automation & Controls Engineer Verified today
The Role
You'll be at the heart of bringing the production system to life. K2 is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown and has a strong push to vertically integrate our production system. You'll work side-by-side with production and engineering teams to concept, develop, and roll out automation projects.
At principal level, you'll not just implement automation and controls projects - you'll help shape how K2 approaches these projects: setting standards, requirements, design process, and determining what automation looks like at K2.
This role is built for someone who wants to help own the future of satellite manufacturing, thrives in a fast-paced environment, and wants to take high levels of ownership. You'll draw on deep technical intuition, contribute to systems that scale, and have core impact in increasingly complex challenges as we push towards higher-rate production.
Responsibilities
- Own the company roadmap of production automation across hardware and control layers, working closely with mechanical, electrical, and production engineers
- Conceive, design, and develop production tooling electromechanical automation assemblies either in-house or through vendors
- Own hands-on buildout, activation, and qualification of automation and controls projects across the production line spanning machine design, robotics, computer vision, and other systems
- Shape and implement HMI strategy and PLC automation in a way that makes machines easy to operate with repeatable results
- Understand build flow, production reliability, and process control to implement strategies to increase production takt rate and first pass yield
- Mentor and develop junior engineers, raising the technical bar across the team to help achieve automation and production goals
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical, manufacturing, aerospace, materials, or other relevant engineering discipline
- 4+ years of experience in a high-volume manufacturing, production, or hands-on engineering environment
- 6+ years of experience working in industrial automation and controls in a production environment, including full-stack ownership
- Strong hands-on aptitude and willingness to work directly with hardware on the production floor
- In-depth knowledge of precision assembly and electromechanical fabrication processes
- Ability to generate and review engineering drawings, schematics, and technical documentation
- Experience setting up a manufacturing/production floor for first article builds through at-rate production
Nice to Have
- Full-stack and state of the art experience with industrial automation hardware and controls, PLC/HMI/robotics software control stacks, electrical and fluid schematics
- Exposure to space, defense, or other high-reliability manufacturing environments