Principal Test Engineer, Compute Payload (Starmind)

PRINCIPAL TEST ENGINEER, COMPUTE PAYLOAD (STARMIND)

SpaceX is leveraging its experience deploying and operating the world’s largest satellite constellation to develop Starmind, a new constellation of satellites capturing solar energy in space to power low-cost, high-performance AI compute for Earth. Realizing this vision demands highly reliable, high performance compute hardware systems which must operate in the extreme environment of space.

The Starmind team designs, builds, and operates the orbital compute fabric of the future. We develop nearly every key piece of technology in house – from the satellites’ flight computers and power systems to the fully custom compute electronics, memory, and networking that form the brain of our on-orbit data centers.

As a Principal Test Engineer on the Starmind Compute Payload team, you’ll have ownership over the system which validates the hardware that enables advanced on-orbit AI processing and data center workloads. You will dive into technical details, drive architecture and design trades, mentor engineers, and build the team’s technical bar. Beyond test & automation design, you will analyze, validate, and troubleshoot power and fluid systems for test; define processes; design fixtures and tools. Critically, you will use your experience to identify opportunities to improve both products and processes to unlock aggressive production ramp targets.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Design and implement test processes which seamlessly integrate into electro-mechanical assembly line with rapid iteration
• Create sustainable, automated test systems which have robust mechanical and software systems
• Manage physical infrastructure of test integration and operations
• Interface with engineers, specialists and technicians to optimize testing operations
• Collaborate with the mechanical design team and end users to incorporate designs for test optimization
• Lead development tests ensuring incremental milestones for the production ramp are met
• Track manufacturing system key metrics around rate, cost, and quality
• Identify tooling and hardware requirements, design and implement them into production processes. Rapidly iterate by evaluating non-conformances to determine root cause and drive test optimization

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline