{"id":747540,"url":"https://alion.io/job/spacekinetic-senior-mechanism-simulation-engineer","title":"Senior Mechanism Simulation Engineer","company":{"id":685289,"name":"Space Kinetic","domain":"spacekinetic.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/spacekinetic","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":95,"open_postings":35,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":145,"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["El Segundo, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":140000,"max":200000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":200000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"ANSYS","optional":true},{"name":"ECSS","optional":true},{"name":"Femap","optional":true},{"name":"Nastran","optional":true},{"name":"SolidWorks","optional":true},{"name":"Thermal Desktop","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-03-02T14:49:42Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-12","last_verified_at":"2026-10-31T23:22:47Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":243,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":242},"description":"A New Paradigm For Space Operations.\nWho We Are: \nSpace Kinetic is a dual use space technology startup building a completely new architecture for space operations - one that brings the advantages of proliferated drone technology (low-cost, operationally flexible, attainable, distributed) to space missions while reducing the ecosystem's reliance on consumable fuel. In a world where many companies are focused on incrementally improving the status quo, we are focused on creating something entirely different - an architecture underpinned by new first principles to meet the opportunities and challenges of the third space age head-on. Our goal is to move away from one-to-one space architectures - where each satellite in a constellation has one (or a small # of) primary payloads attached to the bus -- and unlock a ‘one-to-many’ system, where each satellite has a large number of payloads which can be deployed from their host spacecraft at high velocities without firing a thruster.\nThis is not a role for someone looking for a traditional 40-hour work week. Space Kinetic is building ambitious, first-of-its-kind technology, and that requires urgency, ownership, and a high level of commitment to changing the foundational assumptions for everything we do in space.\nWhat You’ll Do: \nThe Senior Mechanism Simulation Engineer will be an integral member of the Mechanical Engineering team. The primary responsibilities include the design analysis and test of prototype and flight hardware from the proprietary innovative electromechanical payload of Space Kinetic's core technology to achieve our mission, the flight demonstration unit, within the next 2 years, and the full production payload facility. This role is pivotal and requires high fidelity structural and kinematics analyses experience aligned with the proper kinematics testing (functional and qualification), test data processing to inform all necessary design changes that will drive the development of our future space mission operations success.\nResponsibilities: \nPartner with the manufacturing/engineering teams to develop the innovative Whirlwind Payload design and analyze the corresponding flight hardware.\nSupport the design team with detailed mechanisms simulations of the prototype and flight hardware.\nAssist with the development phases, conceiving and verifying the mechanism design, providing feedback to the CAD designs for manufacturing, and working closely with vendors to source components.\nDesign the validation and verification (V&V) test that will drive the prototype design improvements and meet space operations mission requirements. \nScaling and optimizing the mechanism designs to enhance the flight system performance.\nHardware validation and verification as well as flight hardware qualification tests.\n What It Takes:\nBachelor’s or Master’s degree in Aerospace, Mechanical, or Structural Engineering.\n10+ years of experience in structural analysis for spacecraft, launch vehicles, or equivalent aerospace hardware.\nExperience in space vehicle structural load requirements across all mission phases: ground handling, transportation, launch/ascent, separation events, on-orbit operations, and disposal, is highly desirable.\nAbility to understand mission concepts, trajectory, motion kinematics and flight dynamics, derive structural design limit loads and requirements a plus.\nUnderstanding of design limit loads, calculate mechanical margins of safety utilizing applicable factors of safety per standards (NASA, DoD, ECSS, etc.).\nExperience with CAD and CAE packages (NASTRAN, FEMAP, ANSYS, SolidWorks, NX, Simcenter 3D, Vibroacoustic, Thermal Desktop, NX Motion, Amesim etc.) is necessary.\nAbility to develop mathematical models and perform simulations to calculate structural margins, kinematics simulations, dynamics environments.\nExperience in designing and executing system and subsystem dynamics and kinematics testing of flight hardware, understanding test data acquisition and adept at implementing design improvements based on test data. \nEvaluate static, dynamic, transient, shock, random and sine vibration as well as vibroacoustic and kinematics environments.\nWork closely with Structures, Thermal, GNC, Propulsion, manufacturing and System Engineering functional teams.\nAbility to obtain and maintain a Government Security Clearance. \nWhat We’d Love\nAdvanced Degrees (Master’s or Ph.D.) in similar discipline are highly desirable with corresponding technical expertise in linear, nonlinear and motion dynamics analysis. \nExperience with space-rated structural mechanisms component design analysis and test.\nRobotics experience, particularly in simulating articulation and complex mechanisms\nExperience working with rotating machinery\nHands-on experience in testing mechanical hardware for space operations.\nPassion for technology development of complex space operations.\nDemonstrated experience in spacecraft or launch vehicle system development.\nExperience in the proposal writing process for the acquisition of grants and contracts. \nAbility to build and maintain a network of talented individuals. Prioritizes organizational and planning skills.\n Where You’ll Be:\nThe position is onsite in El Segundo, CA.\n What We Offer: \nEquity-Based Compensation\n401(k) retirement plan with a 3.5% company match\nHighly Competitive PTO\nPaid company holidays + winter break \nComprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance\nUnique Performance-based bonus opportunities\nITAR Requirements: \nThis position is subject to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Candidates must be a U.S. Person (this includes U.S. Citizen, Permanent Resident, Protected Individual as defined by law), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about ITAR here\nEqual Employment Opportunity:\nSpace Kinetic provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.\nThe annual base salary for this role is below. Pay Grades are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual pay will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: interviews and an assessment of several factors that are unique to each candidate, job-related skills, relevant education/experience, certifications, abilities of the candidate and internal equity. \nPay Range\n$140,000—$200,000 USD","description_format":"text","description_chars":6624,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Retirement plans","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Missiles","Space Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T14:41:29Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":25,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.707,"p_room":0.36,"age_days":242,"expected_fill_days":145,"reasons":["conf:1","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-31T05:58:55Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":200000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/spacekinetic-senior-mechanism-simulation-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/spacekinetic-senior-mechanism-simulation-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-01T00:10:09Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":307,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-02T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":685289},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=685289"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fspacekinetic-senior-mechanism-simulation-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fspacekinetic-senior-mechanism-simulation-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fspacekinetic-senior-mechanism-simulation-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/spacekinetic-senior-mechanism-simulation-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fspacekinetic-senior-mechanism-simulation-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":747540}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"spacekinetic.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":747540},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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