Senior Mechanical Engineer, Solar & Deployables

About the role

Muon seeks a Senior Mechanical Engineer who pairs strong design skills with a deep analysis background to join our new Solar & Deployables hardware group. You'll design the deployable structures that carry our solar arrays — mission-critical, single-point-failure hardware — and own the structural, dynamic, and thermoelastic analyses that prove those designs will survive launch and perform on orbit. Design and analysis go hand-in-hand in this role: the engineer who designs the hardware is the engineer who understands its margins.

As a foundational member of the group, you'll work closely with our mechanisms and photovoltaics leads, partner with Muon's dedicated structural analysis group on the critical interactions between the arrays and the spacecraft bus, and help establish the design and analysis practices that scale from prototype builds through constellation-quantity production.

This position is hybrid and requires working on-site in our San Jose, CA office three days per week.

Responsibilities

• Design deployable structures and supporting hardware for Muon's solar arrays, from concept and trade studies through detailed design, prototyping, and qualification
• Own the structural, dynamic, and thermoelastic analyses of your designs, and support analysis across the group's arrays and mechanisms
• Perform structural FEA — static, modal, random vibration, and shock — and analyze deployment dynamics, kinematics, and torque/force margins
• Partner with Muon's dedicated structural analysis group to understand and manage the critical interactions between the solar arrays and the spacecraft bus — interface loads, coupled dynamics, and stiffness requirements
• Build and test prototypes; support deployment testing with gravity offload and environmental test campaigns (vibration, TVAC, shock)
• Correlate analysis models against modal, vibration, and deployment test data, and iterate designs based on results
• Produce and release engineering documentation: drawings, GD&T, BOMs, and analysis reports under configuration control
• Deliver design and analysis packages for design reviews (PDR, CDR, MRR) and document methods, margins, and best practices
• Support designs from prototype builds through constellation-scale production

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience designing, building, and testing high-reliability hardware, including 5+ years of structural analysis
• Proven track record designing precision mechanical or deployable hardware from concept through qualification
• Strong command of structural FEA — static, modal, and random vibration — using FEMAP/NASTRAN, ANSYS, or similar
• Experience analyzing deployment dynamics and mechanism margins (torque/force, kinematics)
• Demonstrated experience correlating analysis models to test data (modal surveys, vibration, deployment)
• Expert-level CAD skills (SolidWorks preferred) with mastery of drawings, GD&T, and tolerance/mass budgets
• Working understanding of environmental testing (vibration, TVAC, shock)
• Excellent communication and documentation skills, including analysis reports and margin summaries
• B.S. or higher in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related field

Nice-to-have Skills

• Flight heritage — hardware you designed or analyzed that has operated successfully in space
• Direct experience designing or analyzing solar arrays or deployable structures
• Thermal-distortion or thermoelastic analysis experience for precision or deployed structures
• Composite panel and bonded-joint design and analysis experience
• Strong classical hand-analysis skills (strength, joints, fasteners, preload)
• Analysis automation in Python, MATLAB, or similar

Salary

The salary range for this role is $183,000 - $198,000, plus a competitive equity grant and comprehensive benefits package. Final compensation will be determined based on skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location as assessed during the interview process.