Senior Power Engineer

At Vast, our mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space. Vast is developing next-generation space stations to ensure a continuous human presence in space for America and its allies, enabling advanced microgravity research and manufacturing, and unlocking a new space economy for government, corporate, and private customers. Using an incremental, hardware-rich and low-cost approach, Vast is rapidly developing its multi-module Haven Station. Haven Demo’s 2025 success made Vast the only operational commercial space station company to fly and operate its own spacecraft. Next, Haven-1 is expected to become the world’s first commercial space station when it launches, followed by additional Haven modules to enable permanent human presence by 2030. 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 seeking a Senior Power Engineer to own the power system architecture and development for a new constellation-ready 15kW spacecraft bus — a product line designed to scale to hundreds of spacecraft per year. 

This will be a full-time, exempt position located in our Long Beach location. 

About the role:

You'll define the power system architecture for a 15kW-class spacecraft bus — topology, bus voltage, battery sizing, power electronics, and fault protection. You own the architecture decisions, the end-to-end power budget, and the power quality requirements that payload customers must meet. You'll determine what needs to be built new versus what can be reused from heritage, define requirements for any new avionics boxes, and work with the electronics lead to get them built. You'll also coordinate with the solar array and battery teams on electrical performance and any modifications needed for this mission.

Responsibilities: 

• Define the power architecture — DET vs MPPT topology, bus voltage selection, battery sizing, solar array string configuration
• Define requirements for power electronics boxes — the electronics lead builds the boards, you own what they need to do and how they're tested
• Own the power budget — detailed by mode (safe, nominal, peak, eclipse), closed with margin for all payload configurations including high-power compute payloads
• Coordinate with the internal battery team — assess whether the heritage battery meets this mission's requirements and define any modifications needed
• Coordinate with the solar array team on array electrical performance — cell selection, string voltage, degradation, articulation strategy
• Own power distribution — evaluate heritage options or define new requirements as the architecture demands
• Define requirements for SADA and solar array release mechanism procurement
• Define and tailor bus power quality requirements — voltage regulation, transient response, inrush management, EMI/EMC (tailored from MIL-STD-461 or equivalent) — and work with payload customers to flow down and verify compliance
• Own fault protection and safe mode power management — undervoltage protection, load shedding, safe mode power profiles
• Support system-level power trades — how do high-power payloads affect battery sizing, solar array sizing, and eclipse performance?
• Contribute power budget and architecture trade results to the spacecraft design and simulation toolchain
• Build a power engineering team as the program scales from first build to production rate

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical discipline
• 6+ years of spacecraft power system design experience — solar array, battery, bus regulation, power distribution
• Experience with power architecture trades (DET vs MPPT, bus voltage selection)
• Power budget development and management across multiple operating modes
• Battery management system experience — charge control, cell balancing, state of charge estimation
• Understanding of solar array electrical performance — I-V curves, temperature coefficients, radiation degradation
• Experience taking a power electronics box from requirements through functional test
• Comfortable managing heritage reuse — assessing whether existing hardware meets new mission requirements

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Full lifecycle experience with spacecraft power systems — requirements, design, build, test, flight, and on-orbit operations
• Able to obtain a security clearance
• Experience with high-power spacecraft buses (5kW+ class)
• SADA (solar array drive actuator) selection and integration experience
• Power system experience across multi-satellite builds
• Familiarity with LiIon battery electrochemistry and cell-level performance modeling
• Fault protection and autonomous power management experience

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: medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents, generous paid time off; up to 20+ days of vacation for exempt staff and up to 10+ days of vacation for non-exempt staff with the ability to cash-out unused vacation annually, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, ClassPass credits, personalized mental healthcare through Spring Health, and other discounts and perks. We also take pride in offering exceptional food perks, with snacks, drip coffee & onsite barista, cold drinks, and dinner meals remaining free of charge, and lunch subsidized as part of Vast’s ongoing commitment to providing high-quality meals for employees.

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.