Opto-Mechanical Engineer (Aerospace)

Location: San Francisco, California, United States; full-time in-office at the San Francisco headquarters 5 days per week.

Salary: $144,500–$180,600 USD annual base salary, with potential short- and long-term incentives.

Company

Planet designs, manufactures, and operates imaging satellites and delivers Earth-observation data through a cloud-based platform.

What you will do

• Own opto-mechanical manufacturing processes for optical payloads on next-generation Earth-imaging satellites.
• Design manufacturing lines for mid-volume production and optimize assembly and test processes using data-driven decisions.
• Collaborate with optical, structural, thermal, reliability, and spacecraft manufacturing teams to validate stiffness, strength, thermal performance, launch survivability, and on-orbit optical performance.
• Lead part and assembly design, vendor fabrication, failure analysis, tolerance stack-up, and GD&T analyses.
• Maintain design documentation and lead technical presentations and design reviews.
• Support qualification testing and work hands-on with flight and test hardware.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field.
• At least 4 years of experience developing opto-mechanical products from requirements through design, testing, and manufacturing.
• Experience designing high-reliability hardware for space environments, including launch survivability, vacuum conditions, thermal conditions, and STOP performance.
• Experience designing and fabricating optical assemblies using glass, carbon fiber, metals, ceramics, epoxies, mechanisms, and electrical elements.
• Direct hardware experience across prototyping, production, and testing, with strong analytical, problem-solving, verbal, and visual communication skills.
• Ability to work in the San Francisco office 5 days per week and access applicable export-controlled information without additional export licensing.

Nice to have

• Expertise in opto-mechanical manufacturing, metrology, alignment, and calibration.
• Experience with vibration and shock testing, telescope assembly, and optical performance testing.
• Systems engineering experience in requirements management, trade-off analysis, and optical payload integration.
• Experience driving manufacturers and applying DFM/DFA.
• Proficiency in SolidWorks, Zemax, MATLAB, Visual Basic, Python, or C/C++.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with a company-contributed HSA.
• Paid time off, holidays, company-wide days off, and 16 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Wellness and employee assistance programs.
• Home office, phone, internet, commuter, tuition, and learning benefits where applicable.
• Equity and paid volunteering time off.

Hiring process

• Select interviews may be recorded with candidate consent for transcription and summarization.
• AI tools are prohibited during live interviews and active assessments unless explicitly permitted.