Founding Lead Structures Engineer
Pillar Space · Los Angeles, CA · hybrid
FOUNDING LEAD STRUCTURES ENGINEER
Equity: 0.3% – 1% depending on experience
ABOUT US
We're a stealth team building space hardware at the edge of what's currently possible — high-stakes, flight-grade systems where the engineering bar is unforgiving and the upside is enormous. While we can't share full details yet, our founding and early engineering team includes talent from SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Impulse Space, and the group includes people who've pulled off feats almost no one else on Earth has.
ROLE OVERVIEW
We're seeking a Founding Lead Structures Engineer to own the structural architecture and analysis of our spacecraft from first principles: the primary and secondary structure, load paths, and interfaces that carry the vehicle through launch and keep it stable and precise on orbit.
This is a senior technical leadership role. You will not only define and execute the structural architecture, but also help build the structures team, set technical and analysis standards, mentor engineers, and establish the systems, processes, and culture required to develop flight-grade hardware.
This is not a narrow analysis or CAD role. You will own structures end to end: vehicle and subsystem structural architecture, primary and secondary structure, joints and interfaces, structural dynamics, prototyping, environmental test, qualification, and the path to flight production. You will make system-level trades across mass, stiffness, strength, thermal stability, manufacturability, schedule, cost, and mission risk.
The ideal candidate has direct experience with flight structures design, structural analysis, structural dynamics, environmental test, and technical team leadership. We recognize that very few people have all of this. What matters most is that you have exceptional fundamentals, have led real hardware from concept toward flight, have managed or mentored engineers in high-performance technical environments, and can operate independently in ambiguity while making sound engineering tradeoffs. You will have direct ownership over one of the company's core technical challenges.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Own the structural architecture of flight-grade hardware, from concept through detailed design, prototyping, qualification, integration, and flight.
- Lead the design of primary and secondary structures, joints, structural interfaces, and mechanism support structure optimized for launch loads, vacuum, vibration, shock, thermal cycling, and microgravity.
- Lead trade studies across mass, stiffness, strength, thermal stability, manufacturability, reliability, and cost.
- Own the structural analysis approach: hand calculations, tolerance stack-ups, FEA, margins of safety, fastener and joint analysis, and coupled loads inputs at the component, subsystem, and vehicle levels.
- Develop and maintain test-correlated finite element models of the vehicle, and deliver models and data to launch providers for coupled loads analysis.
- Define requirements, design loads, load paths, interfaces, mass and stiffness budgets, and verification plans at the component, subsystem, and system levels.
- Set the standard for CAD, 2D drawings, GD&T, release packages, interface control documents, and structural analysis reports.
- Plan and lead environmental test campaigns, including static loads, sine and random vibration, shock, modal survey, and thermal vacuum, and drive hardware through qualification and acceptance.
- Build the structural test and integration infrastructure: fixtures, mechanical ground support equipment (MGSE), test stands, and lab capability.
- Build and test prototypes, analyze failures, and drive root-cause resolution and design iteration.
- Establish relationships with machine shops, fabricators, and suppliers, and guide design for manufacturability, assembly, and inspection as hardware moves toward flight production.
- Provide technical leadership across structures, structural analysis, and integration and test efforts.
- Help hire, manage, mentor, and develop structures engineers, analysts, and technicians as the team grows.
- Establish engineering processes: design review standards, analysis review and checking, drawing and release workflows, configuration management, and verification discipline appropriate for flight-grade hardware.
- Work cross-functionally with mechanisms, controls, autonomy, software, avionics, propulsion, thermal, and manufacturing to close interfaces and deliver an integrated flight system.
- Work closely with founders and founding engineers to shape the technical roadmap, engineering culture, hiring plan, and long-term structures strategy.
- Represent the structures function in cross-disciplinary design reviews, customer conversations, investor diligence, vendor discussions, and mission planning as needed.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline.
- 8+ years designing, analyzing, building, and testing structures for spacecraft, launch vehicles, aircraft, or other high-reliability systems.
- Prior experience leading technical workstreams, managing engineers, mentoring junior and mid-level engineers, or building high-performing engineering teams.
- Demonstrated ability to own complex structural systems from early architecture through detailed design, build, test, and qualification.
- Strong fundamentals in structural mechanics, structural sizing, load path design, joint and fastener analysis, and stress analysis of metallic and composite structures.
- Experience developing and executing structural analysis for flight or high-reliability hardware, including static, modal, random vibration, and shock analysis, with documented margins of safety.
- Deep experience with hand calculations, tolerance analysis, and FEA, and the judgment to know which one a problem needs.
- Working knowledge of structural design and verification standards such as NASA-STD-5001 (structural design and test factors) and NASA-STD-5020 (threaded fastening systems).
- Expert proficiency in professional CAD software (NX, CATIA, Creo, SolidWorks, or equivalent).
- Proficiency with GD&T and engineering drawing standards (ASME Y14.5).
- Experience taking hardware beyond the bench into environmental testing such as static loads, vibration, shock, thermal, or vacuum.
- Hands-on experience building, debugging, and testing hardware, with fluency in the shop and the lab.
- Ability to work independently with limited direction, identify the right next problem to solve, and drive technical work from ambiguity to tested hardware.
- Ability to make practical system-level tradeoffs across performance, schedule, cost, reliability, manufacturability, and mission risk.
- Ability to lead through influence in a cross-functional environment spanning mechanisms, controls, software, avionics, propulsion, thermal, and manufacturing.
HIGHLY VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
We do not expect every candidate to have all of the following. The strongest candidates will likely have depth in some areas and the ability to quickly learn the others.
- Demonstrated flight heritage: structural hardware you helped design that has flown and operated in space.
- Experience leading structures, structural analysis, mechanisms, or integration and test teams.
- Experience managing engineers in a startup, aerospace company, defense contractor, launch company, or other high-reliability technical environment.
- Experience with multibody dynamics analysis (e.g., Adams, Simscape Multibody, RecurDyn, or equivalent) for deployment sequences, separation events, mechanism kinematics, and flexible-body interactions.
- Experience designing and analyzing mechanisms for space, including deployables, hold-down and release mechanisms, hinges, latches, and actuators, and the structural interfaces between mechanisms and primary structure.
- Familiarity with space mec