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Thermal Associate Engineer (Fall 2025)

San Francisco

Astranis builds advanced satellites for high orbits, expanding humanity’s reach into the solar system. Today Astranis satellites provide dedicated, secure networks to highly-sophisticated customers across the globe— large enterprises, sovereign governments, and the US military.With five satellites on orbit and many more set to launch soon, the company is servicing a backlog of more than $1 billion of commercial contracts.

Astranis is the preferred satellite communications partner for buyers with stringent requirements for uptime, data security, network visibility, and customization.Astranis has raised over $750 million from some of the world’s best investors, from Andreessen Horowitz to Blackrock and Fidelity, and employs a team of 450 engineers and entrepreneurs. Astranis designs, builds, and operates its satellites out of its 153,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Northern California, USA.

Thermal Engineer - Associate Program 

Associate Engineer positions typically last for twelve weeks, and are salaried roles designed for students who have already received a bachelor's degree (or who will have done so before working at Astranis). 

As an Associate Engineer, you will have an amazing opportunity to work on hard problems — we pride ourselves on giving everyone at Astranis a chance to do meaningful work on complex projects, and our Associate Engineers work on projects that are of equal importance and difficulty to the projects we give our full-time employees. Many past Associate Engineers have designed and tested hardware/software that is heading to space on our first satellite, and many now work at Astranis full-time. 

If you are still a college student, please apply to join us as an Intern.

Role

  • Work together with the engineering team to design, analyze, build, and test satellite hardware and/or software.
  • Support design trades that successfully balance performance margins, resource use, risk, cost, and schedule.
  • Perform thermal analysis to varying degrees of fidelity (simplified to detailed) on a variety of different types of hardware such as propulsion components, batteries, high powered electronics, RF components, mechanisms, and printed circuit boards (PCBs).
  • Design, evaluate, procure and test thermal solutions such as heaters, heat pipes, thermal interface materials, and surface coatings.
  • Develop processes and procedures for integration and assembly which ensure thermal design intent is met. Collaborate with the integration and test team in the installation of thermal hardware as needed.
  • Plan and run thermal vacuum testing and verification at the component and spacecraft level.

Requirements

  • Have a four-year degree in mechanical, aerospace, or equivalent technical degree (e.g. physics or applied math)
  • A passion and enthusiasm for hardware development, including working in a fast-paced environment and hands-on design and development
  • Demonstrated ability to personally design, build, and test hardware from scratch.
  • Don't meet them all? Not a problem. Please apply even if you do not meet all these criteria.

Bonus

  • Experience with CAD
  • Experience with analytical software thermal analysis such as ANSYS and Thermal Desktop
  • Experience with electronics systems design and packaging
  • Experience (projects or previous internships) related to aerospace
 
The base salary for this position is $1,925 per week.

Base Salary

$1,750 - $1,750 USD

U.S. Citizenship, Lawful Permanent Residency, or Refugee/Asylee Status Required
(To comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the United States, or other protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3))
 
Our mission and our products are meant to connect the world and everyone in it, regardless of gender, race, creed, or any other distinction. We believe in a diverse and inclusive workplace, and we encourage all people to join our team and bring their unique perspective to help make us stronger.

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