Senior Payload Opto-Mechanical Systems Engineer

 

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Payload Opto-Mechanical Systems Engineer to lead the design, analysis, integration, and verification of advanced spaceborne payloads—including a space telescope and multiple science instruments. In this role, you will collaborate with world-class scientists—including Nobel Prize laureates—as well as engineers, and global partners to develop cutting-edge space observatories that enable groundbreaking astrophysical discoveries. 

 

You will be responsible for translating high-level science objectives into detailed telescope and instrument requirements, overseeing the opto-mechanical development lifecycle, and ensuring that the delivered payload meets mission performance goals. This role blends deep opto-mechanical engineering expertise with systems engineering ownership, giving you significant influence over the architecture, performance, and implementation of the telescope and its instruments.

 

As a key technical leader, you will drive payload-level trade studies and architectures, lead STOP (Structural–Thermal–Optical Performance) analysis efforts, maintain and allocate optical performance and error budgets, and guide hardware development from concept through integration and test. You will serve as the primary technical interface to the telescope vendor and potentially multiple instrument vendors, ensuring their designs, analyses, and implementation meet mission requirements. Your expertise in requirements management, system budgets, vendor management, and V&V will be critical in ensuring mission success. 

 

This position requires strong leadership, deep technical judgment, hands-on engineering capability, and the ability to work seamlessly across multiple engineering disciplines to deliver a high-performance spaceborne optical system. 

 

Key Responsibilities for this role include the following: