Liaison Engineer III - 3rd Shift (Contract)

Sierra Space is currently seeking a motivated and tenacious engineer who will support Assembly Integration and Test operations of the Dream Chaser spacecraft as a representative of the spacecraft design organization.

The ideal candidate will excel in a demanding, fast-paced, and evolving environment where they will work as a lead of a small team of other liaison engineers. Demonstrating thought agility and highly motivated, this person will lead part of the team to accomplish the first of its kind in the private industry, flying spacecraft. This individual takes pride in his/her thoroughness, emphasis on follow through, inter-organizational communication skills and attention to requirements conformance. The candidate will be able to problem solve from the component level to installation level addressing often first time problems and use strong logic, engineering tools, and tactful leadership to come up with solutions to problems that meet or exceed drawing and document requirements. A successful applicant will have the ability thrive in a challenging multidisciplinary build environment, collectively solving build problems that require leadership, collaboration, and agreement of the Design, Quality and Manufacturing organizations.

Liaison engineer team members are responsible as the primary interface for manufacturing floor activity for Uncrewed Dream Chaser (UDC) and Cargo Module (CM) fabrication on the CRS2 program. Liaison’s goal is to ensure design requirements are met between production, planning, and supply chain, while maintaining schedule. Through a detailed understanding of the build processes, design requirements and extensive collaboration with the internal teams designing and managing installations, this team is a key stakeholder to ensure that the overall build of UDC and CM design achieves all objectives.

Sierra Space, based in Louisville, Colorado with operations in Madison, Wisconsin, Durham, North Carolina, and Kennedy Space Center, Florida, designs and manufactures advanced spacecraft, satellites, propulsion and environmental systems, spacecraft subsystems and components for the U.S. government (including NASA), commercial customers and international organizations. Learn more about Sierra Space

Primary Responsibilities:

• Nonconformance (MRB):

  • Review, assess, disposition, analyze, justify, determine cause and relay improvements for build discrepancies, errors and other nonconformances

  • Provide guidance on when NC’s are appropriate vs other engineering change options, enforce process standards, and provide streamlined support to quickly address and close.

  • Oversee, understand, prioritize, communicate and execute nonconformances against program schedule.

• Engineering Change:

  • Develop and utilize knowledge of various engineering change options, determine and execute the appropriate change option that creates the shortest path and meets engineering requirements for each unique problem.

  • Document, prioritize, communicate, and track required engineering changes fed back to the spacecraft design organization for resolution.

  • Work closely with manufacturing, quality, planning, and procurement teams to address changes and shepherd them through fruition on the production floor.

  • Contribute to innovative, time saving, and cost-effective improvements to help streamline engineering change and response times.

• Drawings, Processes and Technical Specifications:

  • Provide guidance to the liaison team, technicians, engineers, and quality assurance engineers related to drawing and spacecraft requirements by overseeing installations; providing training, and information briefs on key topics.

  • Support the development and maintenance of program specific technical specifications, and follow through on execution of these specifications to drive efficiency.

  • Contribute to development and execution of standard repairs, analysis methods, and acceptable defects to streamline defects processing through MRB.

  • Monitor existing processes and nonconformance trends to develop tools and other methods to reduce manufacturing build hours and quality issues, increase production rates, and remove waste from complex processes.

Must-haves:

• Bachelor's of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering or related discipline and typically 6 or more years of relevant experience

• Practical knowledge of engineering principles and practices

• Experience with Computer Aided Engineering tools

• Familiarity working in multi-disciplinary design and development teams

Preferred:

• Experience in design/analysis and build of primary and secondary composite structures

• Experience in design/analysis and build of metallic structures and fittings

• Aerospace propulsion, hydraulics, mechanisms design and build experience desired

• General knowledge of  TIG and orbital welding, familiarity with industry standard plumbing and piping systems

• Familiarity with common tube joining methods, including fittings and seals of various types

• General knowledge of aerospace NDE, including RT, UT, hydro/pneumatic testing

• Proficient or familiar with hand calculation methods for structural analysis

• Aerospace propulsion, hydraulics, mechanisms design and build experience desired

• Proficiency preferred in NX CAD, but experience is another CAD package is acceptable

• Familiar with typical PLM architecture

• Excel, or similar data analysis software

• Experience with utilizing, developing, optimizing, interpreting and maintaining process specifications and work instructions

• Ability to influence without authority, tenacious, and highly energetic

• Able to adapt to a fast-paced and evolving work environment

• Confident and competent in communication across departments and at different levels of leadership

• Experience driving cross-functional changes to address specific technical problems

• Experience monitoring, tracking, and continually improving design via root cause analysis

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

To conform to U.S. Government international trade regulations, applicant must be a U.S. Citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State or U.S. Department of Commerce.

With 30+ years of proven spaceflight heritage, Sierra Space has provided more than 4,000 space systems, subsystems and components to customers worldwide, and participated in more than 500 missions to space, including to Mars. The company has technology in production and in development to enable space habitats for short- and long-duration space travel, a fleet of Dream Chaser spaceplanes, and the first free-flying commercial space station. Please visit www.sierraspace.com to learn more about Sierra Space, its business areas, capabilities, programs, products and services.

At Sierra Space, our mission is to dream, innovate, inspire and empower the next generation to transform humanity through technology and imagination. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we welcome our employees to bring their whole selves to their work. Sierra Space is committed to fostering an inclusive, accepting, and diverse environment free of discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran. Contributions to Sierra Space come in many shapes and styles, and we believe diversity in our workforce fosters new and greater ways to dream, innovate, and inspire.