Mechanical Engineer – Solar Array Deployable Structures

Location: Greater Seattle Area; on-site. Applicants must satisfy U.S. Government space technology export-control requirements, including being a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, protected individual, or eligible to obtain the required authorizations.

Salary: $100,000–$300,000 annually, depending on skills, experience, qualifications, and internal equity.

Company

hirify.global Corp. is an early-stage aerospace company building satellite infrastructure for orbital energy generation, optical communications, and on-orbit computing.

What you will do

• Own the solar-array deployable structure and its mechanism from concept through flight, including actuation, sequencing, latching, locking, stowage, and launch restraint.
• Design and analyze deployment kinematics, synchronization, force and torque margins, jam resistance, bearings, guides, drives, dampers, and release devices.
• Perform structural analysis of deployed and stowed structures, including stiffness, fundamental frequency, buckling, strength, stability, thermal distortion, and pointing performance.
• Design, build, and operate ground testbeds and gravity-offload deployment rigs for large structures.
• Develop and execute deployment, life-cycle, static/modal, vibration, thermal-vacuum, qualification, and acceptance test programs.
• Collaborate with structures, GN&C, power, avionics, propulsion, and software teams to integrate the array into the spacecraft architecture and resolve test anomalies.

Requirements

• BS or MS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
• 3+ years of experience designing and analyzing deployable mechanisms or precision mechanical hardware in aerospace or other high-performance environments.
• Strong fundamentals in kinematics, actuation, springs and stored energy, motors and drives, bearings, latches, tribology, and deployment reliability.
• Solid structural fundamentals covering stiffness, buckling and stability, strength, and structural dynamics of slender or lightweight structures.
• Hands-on experience building, integrating, and testing mechanisms and taking hardware from concept through build and test.
• Proficiency with CAD tools such as NX, SolidWorks, or similar.

Nice to have

• Experience designing deployable booms, masts, large solar-array structures, antennas, or flexible-blanket solar arrays.
• Composite structure design, analysis, fabrication, bonding, layup, joint design, and testing experience.
• Experience with gravity-offload rigs, space-rated lubrication, mechanism qualification, and spacecraft thermal, vibration, and vacuum environments.
• Knowledge of flexible-structure dynamics, GN&C interaction, low-frequency modes, pointing, jitter, and aerospace standards such as MIL-SPEC, NASA-STD, or ECSS.
• Startup or early-stage hardware development experience and comfort working with significant technical ambiguity.

Culture & Benefits

• Fast-paced, hardware-focused development with quick design cycles, hardware builds, and test campaigns.
• Equity in hirify.global Corp.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and eligible dependents.
• 401(k), paid time off, 10 paid holidays, and paid parental leave.
• Relocation assistance where applicable.
• Daily office lunch and a stocked kitchen with beverages and snacks.