Lead, Systems Engineering (Space Vehicle Mechanical)

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Job Title: Lead, Systems Engineering (Space Vehicle Mechanical)
Job Code: 22386
Job Location: Remote or Palm Bay, FL or Rochester, NY or Ft. Wayne, IN or Colorado Springs, CO or San Diego, CA

Job Description:

L3Harris' Space and Airborne Systems seeks a Space Vehicle (SV) Mechanical Systems Engineer (MSE) to join our growing team. The individual in this role will act as the primary mechanical systems engineer responsible for mechanical integration of the spacecraft bus, mission payload, and communication payload to ensure seamless end-to-end mission performance. The MSE has overall technical responsibility for the mechanical design, development, integration, and test for the Space Vehicle and serves as the primary software point of contact for external segments, test and operations. The MSE will coordinate and/or perform test and analysis integration activities to ensure the system meets Customer and Mission requirements. The MSE will coordinate all mechanical technical efforts to generate contractually required system design documents and design review technical packages. 

 

Essential Functions:

• Manages and maintains the mechanical integration of the spacecraft bus, mission payload and communications payload according to internal and external ICDs
• Generation and coordination of mechanical design specifications and interface (internal and external) documents including requirements derivation, allocation, and flow up/down, and V&V activities
• Extracts mechanical and environmental requirements from mission-level and CONOPs, and cascades them to the spacecraft bus, mission payload, and communications payload, encompassing allocations into software, firmware, and hardware, as well as test beds and simulators.
• Ensures mechanical functional and physical allocations, changes and requirements compliance are being addressed throughout the SV design.
• Coordinates and/or completes mechanical integration activities such as mass properties management, propulsion and mass budgets, critical clearances, structural, thermal, Field of View, slosh, and coupled loads analyses and test, mechanical ground support equipment (MGSE) integration, cable harness routing, and configuration control.
• Supports the SEIT organization in planning the mechanical integration testing of HW/SW from the subsystem level to the SV level, including execution of SV level tests and troubleshooting issues
• Maintains cognizance and communicates changes of the SV subcontractor and in-house mechanical design baselines, pinouts, size and weight, and interfaces
• Support to the system modeling teams in generation of Cameo system views and simulations as well as ConOps generation
• Works closely with Software, Mechanical, and Integration and Test Systems Engineers to own and oversees End-to-End integration of spacecraft bus, mission payload, and communications payload across the full program lifecycle
• Represent Space Vehicle mechanical engineering during major system level design reviews such as SRR, SDR, PDR and CDR and milestone reviews such as MRR, TRR, PSF, LRR and MDR
• Leads or participates in failure review boards, engineering review boards, change control boards to ensure mechanical impacts are coordinated across the SV
• Creating and/or supporting delivery of Customer CDRLS
• Ability to lead diverse technical teams across internal and subcontractor efforts
• 25% travel as required

Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s Degree and minimum 9 years of prior relevant experience. Graduate Degree and a minimum of 7 years of prior related experience. In lieu of a degree, minimum of 13 years of prior related experience.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or adjacent field.
• Active TS/SCI security clearance. 
• Experience with mechanical integration of spacecraft busses, mission payloads, and communications payloads for seamless end-to-end mission performance.
• Experience with leading both internal and external supplier mechanical engineering teams.
• Experience with mechanical integration, testing, and troubleshooting of complex systems.

Preferred Additional Skills:

• Well versed in fleshing out or coordinating physical and functional mechanical interface details such as connectors pinouts and cable routing, mounting, seals, docking, dispenser, solar array and deployment mechanisms, payload attach points, thruster locations, and thermal control
• Experienced with mechanical requirements validation, sell-off, milestone entry/exit criteria
• Experienced with mechanical integration planning when there are multiple HW solutions from both internal and external suppliers
• Experience with writing Statement of Works for external and internal suppliers
• Familiarity with mechanical engineering structural and thermal processes
• Familiarity with Digital Engineering and MBSE tools such as CAD, DOORs, CAMEO, CREO, JIRA
• Ability to make risk-based decisions balancing technical, cost and schedule
• Strong track record of leading integration and test engineering teams through all phases of a space program; pursuits and proposal, design and development, integration and test, and operations
• Experience in mentoring and growing technical staff
• Ability to perform or coordinate Space Vehicle level mechanical analyses and trades such as pin outs, mass and propellant budgets, structural, thermal, vibration and shock, modal, and mass properties analyses and test, sensor sizing, and hardware placement

In compliance with pay transparency requirements, the salary range for this role in Colorado State, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Vermont and New York State is $108,500-$201,500. For California, Seattle, Washington D.C., Maryland Greater Washington D.C. area, the city of Denver, Washington State and New York City, the salary range for this role is $125,000-$232,000. This is not a guarantee of compensation or salary, as final offer amount may vary based on factors including but not limited to experience and geographic location. L3Harris also offers a variety of benefits, including health and disability insurance, 401(k) match, flexible spending accounts, EAP, education assistance, parental leave, paid time off, and company-paid holidays. The specific programs and options available to an employee may vary depending on date of hire, schedule type, and the applicability of collective bargaining agreements. The application window for this requisition is anticipated to close June 30, 2025.

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Please be aware many of our positions require the ability to obtain a security clearance. Security clearances may only be granted to U.S. citizens. In addition, applicants who accept a conditional offer of employment may be subject to government security investigation(s) and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.

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