Founding 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

• 1+ years designing and building flight hardware (spacecraft, launch vehicles, or hypersonics)
• 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