Sr. NPI Engineer, Kuiper Spacecraft Mechanical

Project Kuiper is an initiative to increase global broadband access through a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Its mission is to bring fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world. Project Kuiper will help close the digital divide by delivering fast, affordable broadband to a wide range of customers, including consumers, businesses, government agencies, and other organizations operating in places without reliable connectivity.

This is a highly collaborative position spanning the gap between development and production, focusing on delivering mechanical systems that support the project Kuiper mission.

You will lead the charge to develop a scalable and reliable way of manufacturing, assembling, and integrating precision mechanisms and systems to the vehicle.

You will serve as the voice of production within the design and development teams, helping shepherd new designs into reality.

Key job responsibilities

Design For Manufacture / Assembly : Partner closely with Design Engineering teams to develop and optimize manufacturing processes for new designs.

Drive design for excellence (DFX) activities on new concepts and products.

New Hardware Development : Support rapid product revision and development, addressing product design risks in both function and manufacturability through test to deliver stable design packages to production.

Conceive and develop trade studies that explore, test, and validate new manufacturing processes.

New Design Realization : Lead the implementation of new designs into manufacturing processes, translating design intent into scalable production solutions.

Define and own all Failure Mode Effects and Analysis (FMEA), Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA / Gauge R&R), and Process Capabilities Study (CPK) activities required to deliver and validate pilot production of new designs.

• Test integration : Refine new product qualification and acceptance test processes, pulling in external resources such as test, manufacturing, tooling, vendors, integration, and other design groups as required to deliver stable and scalable testing methods.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration : Collaborate closely with Design Engineering, procurement, and production teams, owning the handoff from development to production.

Export Control Requirement : Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.

S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

A day in the life

This role will be responsible for facilitating new product development, and will be essential in the on-time delivery of hardware capable of achieving mission success.

Team members will work with a broad scope and autonomy to fill any and all gaps between product concept and delivery. You will work within the mechanical design group and interface with established production teams, driving DFX activities, ensuring new designs have stable production and test processes.

Your work will drive you to become the subject matter expert for the systems you support. You will shepherd new and complex assemblies from the stages of early design to production stability.

About the team

This team is organized within the satellite mechanical design team to accelerate the design iteration process and ensure on-time delivery of the most stable and successful product possible.

The tasks and daily focus change rapidly, and you will often take on new and exciting responsibilities as required to ensure project success.

Expect to be deployed to complex problems that are driving the design, identify the scope of the issue, and quickly establish functional solutions able to be tested and integrated into the design.

You’ll be constantly looking for ways to improve your product’s performance, quality and cost.

We are open to hiring candidates to work out of one of the following locations :

Redmond, WA, USA

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics, material science or other related discipline, or relevant experience
• 7+ years of demonstrated experience in developing and integrating manufacturing processes
• 5+ years of experience with developing spacecraft or similarly complex hardware
• 3+ years of experience with hardware test or laboratory test environments

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience applying new product introduction (NPI) approach to complex product development
• Strong CAD experience (NX), DFMEA / PFMEA experience, and GD&T knowledge
• Strong organizational, analytical, root cause analysis and problem-solving skills
• Experience supporting production development or bringing up new production areas
• Cross-organizational communication comfortable communicating ideas and concerns clearly and persuasively, in both verbal and written forms
• Demonstrated ability to engage technology developers in the industry to track and apply emerging technologies to innovative mechanical designs
30+ days ago