Senior Mechanical Engineer, Rocket Components and Mechanisms

Astra builds rockets. This role is for an engineer who wants clear ownership, fast iteration, and real hardware responsibility—from requirements through design, build, test, qualification, and flight release.

You will own rocket propulsion hardware end-to-end: requirements → detailed design → drawings → build → test/qualification → design fixes → flight-ready release. You’ll work closely with manufacturing, test, and quality, and you’ll be expected to get hands‑on when hardware needs to move.

• Design and develop rocket propulsion hardware and mechanisms for Rocket 4 (valves, actuators, manifolds, housings, bolted joints, rotating/sliding interfaces)
• Convert requirements into finished designs using hand calcs, FBDs, sizing, tolerancing, and FEA
• Apply sealing design fundamentals across real propulsion conditions: static + dynamic seals, material compatibility, cryogenic and high-pressure design
• Create production drawings with GD&T and work directly with shops to iterate for manufacturability
• Assemble and test your own hardware: write test plans, run campaigns, instrument setups, troubleshoot anomalies, own failure analysis, and drive corrective design changes

• First-principles problem solver with solid fundamentals
• Fluent with drawings, GD&T, tolerances, fits, machining constraints
• Very hands‑on: comfortable assembling, instrumenting, debugging, and iterating hardware under schedule pressure
• Aerospace experience is helpful; more important is comfort in high‑reliability / high‑consequence rocket hardware environments
• BS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or similar
• 3+ years of relevant mechanical design experience

• Experience with rocket propulsion systems, flight/space/defense hardware, or test & qualification in regulated environments
• Direct experience with high-pressure fluids, cryogenic systems, sealing, or mechanism design in harsh environments