Vehicle Structures Design Engineer II

About the Team: 

The Structures and Mechanisms team is responsible for the full design, build, and test lifecycle of Terran R’s integrated structures and flight mechanisms. Whether you're working on highly iterative mechanisms that move or tight-margin structures that shouldn’t, you’ll get hands-on hardware ownership and see the rocket coming to life on the factory floor. Both teams fall under one department, sharing design principles, tools, and an integrated approach that provides a comprehensive view of Terran R. Team members work on multiple parts, not just within a single subsystem, and are empowered to make decisions that directly impact flight hardware. Beyond first flight, you’ll play a critical role in refining for manufacturability and speed.

About the Role:

• The scope of work encompasses designing parts and systems from early conceptualization through full release and supporting manufacturing for primary and secondary structures related to all stages of the Terran R rocket. You will need to think creatively and leverage innovation to optimize part geometry, ensure assembly packaging, prevent interferences and excessive gapping, reduce mass, and make parts fully manufacturable. You’ll also assist manage parts and assemblies throughout their lifecycles in PLM, and you’ll control BOM structuring and configuration management for many systems across the vehicle. Your responsibilities will include, but not be limited to the following:
  • Design and develop piece parts, assemblies, and systems from early conceptualization up through full initial release – working with large machined metallic components, sheet metal, composites, formed panels, and more 
  • Integrate critical design for manufacturing choices in direct coordination with the manufacturing engineering team 
  • Perform packaging assessment of systems – resolve interferences, perform tolerance stack analyses, validate hardware stacks and fastener selections, integrate nominal gapping and shimming strategies, and more 
  • Support BOM and configuration management of various systems across multiple vehicles
  • Create and release drawings as part of system release sprints post-CDR, including incorporating GD&T as primary definition In order to be successful in this role, you must be someone who is self-motivated, adaptable and is able to lead your own projects to completion in a fast-paced environment. Ideally, you have significant mechanical or structural design experience and a proven track record completing collaborative projects effectively.
  • On a weekly basis, you will be designing flight components for our upcoming Terran R vehicle using NX/TeamCenter, creating and releasing drawings as well as supporting fabrication of your components. You will also use your strong organizational skills to properly document your work and present your recommendations when decisions are needed.

About You:

• 2+ years of experience in a design engineering role
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a related discipline
• Experience with industry-standard CAD packages such as NX, CATIA, Creo, or SOLIDWORKS 
• Fundamental knowledge of structures strength, stability and fatigue failure mechanisms

Nice to haves but not required:  

• 1+ years of experience with NX/Teamcenter PLM 
• 1+ years of experience with GD&T and drafting