Senior Battery Electrical Engineer

Long Beach, California, United States

At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. We are building artificial gravity space stations, allowing long-term stays in space without the adverse effects of zero-gravity. Our initial crewed space habitat will be Haven-1, scheduled to be the world’s first commercial space station when it launches into low earth orbit in August 2025. Our team is all-in, committed to executing our mission safely and on time. If you want to work with the most talented people on Earth furthering space exploration for humanity, come join us.

At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. We are building artificial gravity space stations, allowing long-term stays in space without the adverse effects of zero-gravity. Our initial crewed space habitat will be Haven-1, scheduled to be the world’s first commercial space station when it launches into low earth orbit in August 2025. Our team is all-in, committed to executing our mission safely and on time. If you want to work with the most talented people on Earth furthering space exploration for humanity, come join us.

Vast is looking for a Senior Battery Electrical Engineer, reporting to the Senior Director of Power & Systems, to support the development of the Battery systems for our artificial-gravity human-rated space stations. This will be a full-time, exempt position located in our Long Beach location.

Responsibilities: 

  • Design and develop advanced battery systems for the first commercial space station
  • Complete and document technical surveys of battery technology for next generation space stations
  • Own cell selection for optimized for energy, power, and cost considering a wide array of technologies
  • End-to-end ownership of battery and battery management system specification, architecture, simulation, schematic capture, PCB design, board-level bring-up and validation, environmental qualification (vibration, thermal vacuum), and integrated system-level validation
  • Design of circuits to implement functions such as battery voltage/current sensing, charge balancing, disconnect relays, galvanic isolation, and fault detection
  • Development of battery models for electronic simulation and system modeling and battery state-of-charge estimation algorithms
  • Perform due diligence on designs including reliability calculations, FEA, FMEA, and DFMEA

Minimum Qualifications:

  • Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering
  • 4+ years of experience developing electrical hardware 

Preferred Skills & Experience:

  • 4+ years of experience in battery electrical systems for space vehicles across the product lifetime including design, development, test, in flight operation, and anomaly resolution
  • Ability to creatively solve problems and bring multiple disciplines together while assessing risk and making design and development decisions with incomplete data set
  • Experience working with instrumentation and data acquisition (e.g. SPICE, SQL, and/or National Instruments hardware)
  • Experience with software programming: Matlab, Python, C/C++, etc
  • Experience with vehicle and instrumentation buses such as Ethernet, CAN, SPI, and I2C, as well as serial I/O (RS232/422/485)
  • Experience with full-lifecycle product development
  • Experience with battery design for spaceflight environment, verifying workmanship and operability through environmental tests (random vibration, shock, thermal, TVAC, and thermal runaway testing)
  • Experience with Siemens NX and Altium, or equivalent electrical design platforms
  • Strong sense of accountability and integrity with excellent written and verbal communication skills
  • Ability to thrive at an early-stage startup where you will have the opportunity to help create and optimize key systems and processes

Salary Range: California

$135,000 - $200,000 USD

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
 
Base salary will vary depending on job-related knowledge, education, skills, experience, business needs, and market demand. Salary is just one component of our comprehensive compensation package. Full-time employees also receive company equity, as well as access to a full suite of compelling benefits and perks, including: 100% medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents, flexible paid time off for exempt staff and up to 15 days of vacation for non-exempt staff, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, free catered meals and snacks and beverages, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, One Medical membership, ClassPass credits, personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health, and other discounts and perks.

U.S. EXPORT CONTROL COMPLIANCE STATUS

The person hired will have access to information and items subject to U.S. export controls, and therefore, must either be a “U.S. person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.62 or otherwise eligible for deemed export licensing. This status includes U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), and asylees and refugees with such status granted, not pending.
 

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

Vast is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Vast is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

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