Mechanical Engineer

About The Role

You'll be our first mechanical engineer for Dispatch’s reusable reentry vehicles designed for mass manufacturing and the person responsible for turning a heat shield and avionics stack into a flying spacecraft. This is a founding role - you'll own the structural design, mechanisms, and integration of our reentry vehicle from CAD to qualification testing to launch.

At our stage, this means you're doing the analysis and the hands-on build. You'll work directly with both founders on a daily basis. Both founders are ex-Astranis - Andrew led the avionics team, Payton was chief engineer on their next-gen satellite line.

Responsibilities

- Design the primary vehicle structure (load paths, interfaces, payload volume)

- Own mechanical systems: deployment mechanisms, recovery/parachute systems, payload integration hardware

- Run structural analysis (FEA) for launch and reentry load environments

- Produce engineering drawings with GD&T for fabricated and machined parts

- Build and test prototype hardware

- Support environmental qualification testing (vibration, thermal vacuum)

Required Qualifications

- 3+ years designing and building flight hardware (spacecraft, launch vehicles, hypersonics, or missiles)

- Strong mechanical design skills: structures, mechanisms, packaging in constrained volumes

- Proficiency in CAD (SOLIDWORKS or similar) and FEA tools (Femap or similar)

- Hands-on prototyping experience - you've machined, assembled, and tested your own designs

- Comfortable working across disciplines at an early-stage company

Nice to Have

- Experience with reentry vehicles, capsule structures, or high-load environments

- Recovery system design (parachutes, airbags, flotation)

- Familiarity with rideshare mechanical interface standards (ESPA, Exolaunch deployers)

- Thermal protection system integration experience