Mechanical Engineer (Structures) - Space Solar

Department: Starlight Solar

Location: Hawthorne, CA

Compensation: $100K – $160K • Offers Equity • Multiple Ranges

Employment Type: FullTime

Mechanical Engineer (Structures) - Space Solar

Position Details
Location: Los Angeles (Hawthorne), CA
Employment Type: Full-time
Department: Structures
Travel: Occasional

About Starpath
Starpath develops and manufactures the technologies that will enable humans to live on the Moon and Mars. Today, we are building robotic systems that locally produce the essential commodities a lunar civilization will require at extreme scale: water, power, and oxygen. Our ultimate goal is to build and operate a self-sustaining city on Mars.

The Role
The Structures team designs and builds the mechanical backbone of Starpath's hardware — the primary and secondary structures, mechanisms, and interfaces that must survive the punishing loads of launch and the extreme environments of space and planetary surfaces. From the systems that produce water, power, and oxygen on the Moon to the equipment bound for Mars, every subsystem depends on structures that are light, strong, and manufacturable at rate.

As a Mechanical Engineer on the Structures team, you will own load-bearing hardware from concept through flight — designing, analyzing, testing, and qualifying the structures that hold Starpath's systems together.

Responsibilities

• Own mechanical structures from concept through detailed design, analysis, fabrication, test, and flight — including primary and secondary structures, brackets, housings, and mechanisms

• Perform structural analysis using hand calculations and FEA to size hardware for launch, landing, thermal, and operational loads, maintaining positive margins with appropriate factors of safety

• Generate detailed manufacturing and assembly drawings with proper GD&T, and select materials, fasteners, and joining methods suited to the space environment

• Define and execute structural qualification and acceptance testing — static load, vibration, shock, and modal — and correlate analytical models to test data

• Work closely with manufacturing to design for manufacturability and rate, and with thermal, avionics, propulsion, and controls teams to integrate structures into the larger system

• Drive mass optimization and design simplification without compromising structural integrity

• Push back on unnecessary complexity — simplify load paths, reduce part count, and cut overhead wherever it doesn't add value

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's or advanced degree in mechanical, aerospace, structural, or a related engineering discipline

• 1+ years of mechanical design or structural engineering experience (internship and academic experience applicable)

• Proficiency with 3D CAD and the ability to produce detailed engineering drawings with GD&T

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in an engineering discipline

• Proficiency with FEA tools (e.g., Nastran, Abaqus, Ansys, or Femap) for static, dynamic, thermal, and fatigue analysis

• Experience designing flight hardware that has survived launch and operated in space, or other high-reliability hardware for extreme environments

• Familiarity with launch and landing load environments — quasi-static loads, random vibration, shock, and coupled loads analysis

• Hands-on structural test experience — static load, vibration, shock, and modal survey — including test-to-model correlation

• Experience with lightweight, load-optimized structures across machined, sheet-metal, welded, and composite/bonded construction

• Knowledge of materials selection, fasteners, and joint design for thermal cycling, vacuum, and radiation environments

• Experience designing mechanisms such as deployables, hinges, latches, and actuators

• Familiarity with aerospace structural standards and margin policies (e.g., NASA-STD-5001, GEVS)

• Exposure to aerospace, space, or other high-reliability hardware environments

Compensation & Benefits

• Location: Los Angeles (Hawthorne), CA

• Competitive salary plus equity package; compensation scales with candidate experience

• PTO & health/dental/vision coverage included

EAR REQUIREMENTS:

• To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Equal Opportunity
Starpath is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.