Propulsion Test Team Lead

As our Propulsion Test Team Lead you will be responsible for testing & fueling our propulsion systems.  You will lead, and continue building, a team of world class propulsion test engineers and technicians.  

Role

• Lead a team of Propulsion test engineers and technicians that test satellite propulsion systems, including hiring and managing direct reports.
• Create and enforce quality standards and processes to ensure proper verification of unit-level and system-level hardware. Evaluate non-conformances to determine root cause and create corrective action plans and system improvements
• Manage day-to-day activities of propulsion test, including creating processes for assigning and tracking work across production & development testing programs.
• Create and enforce a culture of safety and quality throughout the workplace.
• Evaluate proposed designs for testability and work closely with design engineering teams on new designs and processes to enable factory output growth targets up to 24 vehicles per year
• Create, maintain and communicate detailed schedules, ensuring your team and other stakeholders are aware of tasks and deadlines, including resource identification and acquisition.
• Own the test infrastructure needed to test our current and next generation propulsion system, including factor layout, safety equipment, and test beds. 
• Work hands-on with flight hardware alongside your team to ensure mission success.
• Develop ironbirds (test beds) for doing flight-like development and qualification testing.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering.
• 5+ years of professional experience in a hardware manufacturing or production environment (aerospace preferred).
• Demonstrated ability to manage a lab and/or production facilities, equipment, and operations.
• Proven leadership through project management, mentorship, or people management experience.
• Hands-on experience working with fluid or gas feed systems.
• Ability to use ERP/MES systems for creating procedures, tracking hardware ad builds, and enforcing quality processes.
• Strong communication (written and verbal), organizational skills, and attention to detail.
• Strong fluid systems engineering intuition and critical thinking. Comfort with ambiguity and turning high-level requirements into clear design/test objectives.

Bonus

• Direct management experience of engineers or technicians
• Experience with fluid and gas system component design.
• Experience designing & maintaining test infrastructure
• Specific experience with low thrust monopropellant, green monopropellant, and electric propulsion systems
• Experience in spacecraft fueling and launch operations.
• Familiarity with AFSPCMAN 91-710 and other Range Safety documentation and requirements

Production Master Scheduler

A Production Master Scheduler is the creator and owner of the Astranis production schedule across all programs, and the leader of the Production Control function. You will be responsible for developing and maintaining plans that push the limits of what is possible but are still achievable, gaining buy-in from key stakeholders, and working with company leadership and production resources to execute them.

The ideal candidate must be able to filter a complex schedule of thousands of lines into simple targets that people can understand, navigate under-constrained problems with large data sets and converge on a path forward, stay aware of the status of many things and spot problems before they occur, and possess excellent verbal and written communication skills. If you are the ultimate organizer, can juggle 10 things at once with ease, walk into a room with many different opinions and out of that room with one clear shared goal, and have a passion for ruthless execution and improvement - this might be the role for you!

Role 

• Develop and maintain detailed resource-loaded schedules for multiple simultaneous satellite production and launch programs, including flight hardware, R&D hardware, tooling, and test equipment.
• Work closely with the production leadership team to develop and execute realistic but aggressive plans, and with the engineering program management team to integrate these schedules into end-to-end programmatic schedules.
• Derive and communicate clear targets and priorities for every piece of hardware to the relevant production workcenters, and work with production managers to ensure appropriate allocation of resources, schedule accuracy and on-time delivery.
• Steer a team of production coordinators in an indirect reporting/matrix org structure to ensure correct prioritization on a daily basis and ensure on-time material movement through the factory.
• Identify and report on the critical path schedule issues, and work with company leadership and internal partners to drive actions and decisions to enable continued progress.
• Perform quick “what if” schedule modeling and analyses on multiple possible outcomes to help make decisions on emergent risks.
• Create, maintain, and use scheduling processes and tools to identify, analyze, and act on potential constraints on a daily/weekly basis.
• Work with software and procurement teams to implement and maintain a Material Requirements Planning (MRP) system, ensuring data accuracy.
• Constantly communicate schedule status and changes to key stakeholders across the business, in written reports, meetings/presentations, and in automated fashion using dashboards and other tools.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in an engineering or similar technical discipline, or 5+ years of professional work in the aerospace industry.
• 2+ years of professional experience as an integrated master scheduler of medium- to large-sized (>2000 lines) projects, including creating resource-loaded schedules.

Bonus

• Experience with Smartsheet or MS Project scheduling software.
• Proficiency in SQL query writing, and ability to create custom dashboards in Grafana/Tableau/PowerBI/etc.
• Experienced in planning and scheduling using ERP/MRP software systems.
• Understanding of the aerospace engineering lifecycle.
• Understanding of spacecraft assembly, integration, and test methods.