🧰 Functional Test Engineering Technician

The Company

Astra's mission is to improve life on Earth from space by creating a healthier and more connected planet. Astra delivered its first commercial payload into Earth orbit in 2021, making it the fastest company in history to reach this milestone, just five years after being founded in 2016. By achieving monthly, weekly, then daily launches, we'll create the infrastructure services our customers need in space to build a healthier and more connected planet. If you're excited by a sense of possibility, the chance to innovate, and make a difference here on Earth, we think you should work here too.

How You’ll Fulfill Your Mission

As an Engineering Technician supporting the Functional Test Engineering department**,** your biggest impact will be ensuring the reliability of the systems that make our rocket fly. To achieve this, you support the design, development, and execution of prototype and test equipment builds for avionics hardware and test equipment. Your responsibilities will span PCBA board testing and defect detection, sensor/transducer verification, and full system-level functional testing. You’ll also build out our hardware-in-the-loop simulator that will exercise the avionics system from pre-launch operation through the entirety of flight.

Duties include:

• Participate in the initial conceptual design of test equipment
• Assemble and wire industrial control panels based on detailed electrical schematics
• Oversee our development area, maintain common tools (laser cutter, environmental
• chambers and similar), and build out our inventory
• Manufacture and assembly state-of-the-art hardware-in-the-loop systems and test equipment
• Procure and build custom rocket and test harnesses
• Create/update schematics and CAD drawings as needed
• Set safety standards and best practices for our team’s build operations

Qualifications

• 2+ years hands-on experience building/wiring up various hardware
• Exposure to a variety of electrical and mechanical systems, production machinery,
• industrial sensors, and equipment
• Ability to read industrial electrical schematics and mechanical drawings and translate
• into physical builds
• Strong soldering and PCB rework skills
• Experience deploying electrical test equipment to high- or low-volume production
• environments.
• Experience with cable management and clean wire routing a must
• Familiarity with electronics debugging tools (digital multimeters, oscilloscopes, etc.)

Why We Value You

• You have high standards and take pride in building electrical products and test equipment
• You have experience building electrical equipment and harnessing for manufacturing and production environments
• You have an innate sense of mechanical and electronic subsystems testing
• You have experience with similar electronics work in things like vehicle systems,
• robotics, or industrial motion control

Desired Multipliers

• Exposure to MCAD Software (Siemens NX preferred)
• Exposure to Industrial ECAD Software (SolidWorks Electrical, AutoCAD Electrical)
• Exposure to PCBA ECAD Software (SolidWorks Electrical, AutoCAD Electrical, Altium)
• Familiar with test equipment and measurement techniques used to verify and validate
• product requirements (extensive understanding of instrumentation, interfaces and sensors including DMMs, DAQ, power supplies, oscilloscopes, DIO, GPIB, USB, Serial- 422, VISA, UDP, GigE, SPI, switch technologies and topologies, accelerometers, RTDs, thermocouples, and 4-20mA sensors.)

ITAR Requirements: This position requires compliance with U.S. Government space technology  trade restrictions, specifically the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and additional regulations governing satellite, launch vehicle, missile, and other related technologies.  All jobs restricted by these regulations will be contingent upon the applicant’s status as a documented U.S. Person or their ability to receive a trade license from the cognizant government agency; in addition to any required company background checks and in compliance with applicable U.S. and California laws.  Similarly, positions requiring the ability to work on government contracts or a security clearance are also contingent upon the applicants ability to receive the appropriate clearance and be allowed to work on U.S. government contracts.

You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Astra, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

San Francisco Applicants: Astra will consider applicants with arrest and conviction records (criminal histories) in a manner consistent with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.