Mission Operations Engineering Intern (Spacecraft)

Location: In person at the HQ in Torrance, Los Angeles area, United States. Minimum 12-week internship required. The role involves work at factories, test facilities, launch sites, and during pre-launch and space operations. The hired candidate must be a U.S. person under ITAR or otherwise eligible for a federally issued export control license.

Salary: $30–$40 per hour. Housing and travel stipend may be available.

Company

hirify.global develops and mass-produces high-power satellite platforms for commercial and U.S. government missions ranging from low Earth orbit to deep space.

What you will do

• Support manual and automated test procedures validating spacecraft hardware and software flight readiness.
• Participate in integration campaigns for development and flight hardware.
• Operate spacecraft during factory, test-facility, launch-site, pre-launch, and space operations.
• Interpret telemetry, send commands, identify off-nominal conditions, and drive issues to resolution with engineering teams.
• Communicate operational status, needs, risks, mitigations, and trade-offs to internal teams and payload providers.

Requirements

• Currently enrolled in a bachelor's or master's degree in mechanical, electrical, aerospace, or another relevant engineering discipline.
• At least 6 months of technical engineering experience outside classroom coursework, such as laboratory, research, project, volunteer, personal, internship, or work experience.
• Available for a minimum 12-week, in-person internship at the Torrance headquarters.
• Must be a U.S. person under ITAR or otherwise eligible for a federally issued export control license.

Nice to have

• Experience testing and troubleshooting spacecraft, subsystems, and related components.
• Familiarity with LEOP, telemetry, commanding, fault protection, and anomaly resolution.
• Experience with clean rooms, ESD-sensitive equipment, mission or production vehicle operations, HITL or Flatsat testbeds, test automation, Python, Rust, or Linux.

Culture & Benefits

• Hands-on work with real spacecraft and integrated engineering teams.
• Exposure to high-visibility spacecraft integration and flight operations.
• Housing and travel stipend may be available.
• Reasonable accommodations are available during the application and interview process.