Harness Design Engineer I Verified today
About Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems. The Space Systems team has enabled more than 1,700 missions for NASA, the Space Development Agency, the U.S. Space Force, and commercial partners.
The Role
Based in Long Beach, CA, you will design electrical harnesses for spacecraft and assist with avionics engineering activities. You will organize interfaces, select components, specify split locations and lengths, and generate design documentation for the spacecraft engineering team to create accurate CAD models.
Harness Design Responsibilities
- Perform harness layout, connector and back shell selection, wire selection, and shielding design for spacecraft
- Generate pinout tables for harness connectors based on spacecraft interconnect diagrams
- Create and maintain BOMs for harnessing in the product lifecycle management (PLM) tool
- Assist in creating documentation for electrical system schematics and harness designs
Avionics Support Responsibilities
- Develop test plans and procedures for avionics subsystems and components
- Perform analysis and evaluations to optimize spacecraft avionics circuits for performance, reliability, and manufacturability
- Participate in internal design and customer-facing review meetings
- Work in multi-disciplinary teams on electronic assembly design for satellite and spacecraft programs
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in aerospace, mechanical, electrical, or other engineering discipline
- Experience with electrical engineering or avionics
- US citizenship required due to program requirements
Desired Qualifications
- Master's or PhD in aerospace, mechanical, electrical, or other engineering discipline
- Aerospace or defense industry experience
- Satellite development and operations experience
- Understanding of space environment, orbital mechanics, and rigid body dynamics
- Experience with LT Spice, Altium, and Siemens software suite (Teamcenter)
- Requirement management tools such as JAMA
- Testing of electrical subsystems and assemblies including thermal vacuum, random vibration, and hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) testing
- Proficiency in power electronics, communication systems (RS-422, SPI, Ethernet, CAN bus), signal integrity, and grounding
- Proficiency with instrumentation, interfaces, and sensors including power supplies, oscilloscopes, accelerometers, thermocouples, RTDs, and 4-20mA sensors
- Ability to work in dynamic environment with competing priorities
Compensation
- Base salary: $82,400 to $103,000 USD
- Total compensation (base and equity): $89,350 to $115,025 USD
- Company stock as part of compensation package
- Employee Stock Purchase Program with 15% discount
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Paid vacation, sick time, and 11 paid holidays
- Flexible spending and dependent care accounts
- Paid parental leave
- Disability and life insurance
- 401(k) retirement plan with company match
- Subsidized EV charging, fitness centers, gym discounts, and employee discounts
Working Conditions
This position may require prolonged periods of sitting, standing, walking, computer work, and occasional exposure to moderate levels of noise, dust, and fumes in production areas.