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Head of Primary Structures

Cowboy Space Corporation· Launch & Propulsion Engineering
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Kent, Washington$195k - $235kFull-timePosted 3mo ago

About the role

Own the design, build, and performance of the vehicle’s primary structures, including airframe, tanks, thrust structure, interstages, raceways, strakes and thermal protection, ensuring the vehicle survives flight, landing, and rapid reuse with minimal mass and maximum reliability.

Responsibilities

  • Own the primary airframe: propellant tanks, interstages, and thrust structure from concept through flight.
  • Drive structural design for minimum mass while meeting strength, stiffness, fatigue, and thermal requirements.
  • Ensure hardware survives combined ascent, entry, landing, and reuse environments.
  • Lead structural analysis (FEA, hand calcs) and validate with test and flight data.
  • Define and execute structural test campaigns (component, subscale, full-scale).
  • Work directly with manufacturing to iterate quickly and resolve build issues on the floor.
  • Identify and close failure modes through rapid design-test-learn cycles.
  • Support flight operations, anomaly investigation, and post-flight inspection/refurbishment improvements.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace, Mechanical, or related engineering field.
  • 8+ years of experience in structural design, analysis, or mechanisms for flight hardware or high-performance systems.
  • Experience with load paths, structural sizing, and material selection.
  • Hands-on experience taking hardware from design through build and test.
  • Experience leading engineers or a team

Skills

Required:Structural design and analysisFinite Element Analysis (FEA)

Benefits

  • Equity in Cowboy Space Corp.
  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and eligible dependents
  • 401(k) retirement savings plan
  • Paid time off
  • 10 paid holidays per calendar year
  • Paid parental leave
  • Relocation assistance if applicable
  • Daily lunch in the office and a fully stocked kitchen with beverages and snacks
Last updated Oct 25, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Cowboy Space Corporation

Powering Humanity From the High Frontier

Cowboy Space Corp. is building a power grid in outer space for artificial intelligence. It is an integrated system of satellites and rockets to haul high-performance compute and optical data transmission down from Low Earth Orbit. Earth's energy grid can't run at the pace of AI. We can.

Orbital Data CentersAI compute in spacesolar-powered data centersLow Earth Orbitpower grid in space
Company profileWebsite

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