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Senior Powerpack Engineer

Cowboy Space Corporation· Launch & Propulsion Engineering
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Kent, Washington$165k - $210kFull-timePosted 1mo ago

About the role

Senior engineer responsible for turbopump hardware design, analysis, verification, and flight readiness across full lifecycle from concept to flight for Cowboy Space Corporation.

Responsibilities

  • Bring a culture of creativity to every design challenge. Own each solution or improvement with true accountability, seeing it through to completion.
  • Own the mechanical design and development of turbopump hardware from concept through hot fire testing and flight: inducers, impellers, diffusers, volutes, turbine stages, dynamic seals, bearing supports, pump housings and assemblies.
  • Lead architecture trades on the pump and turbine, including shaft speed, stage count, specific speed, bearing and seal arrangement, and how each of those choices lands against the engine cycle.
  • Integrate hydro, aero, structures, rotordynamics, secondary flow, thermal, and bearing constraints into a single design definition the rest of the team can build to.
  • Perform and direct analysis: hand calculations, FEA, rotordynamic models, secondary flow and axial thrust balance, and life prediction for high-stress, high-cycle hardware.
  • Own the verification argument for your hardware. Decide what closes by analysis and what has to close on the stand, write the plan, and see both through.
  • Select materials and manufacturing processes for cryogenic, high-speed, high-stress service, including castings, forgings, and additive parts.
  • Generate detailed component and assembly drawings, design definitions, process specifications, and interface control documents.
  • Drive hardware through fabrication and build: vendor engagement, first article review, and nonconformance disposition.
  • Define and execute component and engine test campaigns. Author instrumentation requests, support test days in real time, reduce the data, and compare it against prediction.
  • Lead root cause investigations on turbopump anomalies and carry the corrective action into both the design and the build paper.
  • Control configuration and pedigree across build, test, and refurbishment, including the inspection criteria that gate hardware for reuse.
  • Work directly with machinists and technicians on the floor to improve producibility and keep iteration fast.
  • Review the design work of Level I, Level II, and Level III engineers and raise the standard of the team's design definitions.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Aerospace, Mechanical, or related engineering field.
  • Strong grounding in turbomachinery fundamentals: hydrodynamic and aerodynamic performance, rotordynamics, secondary flow, and structural life.
  • Proficiency in 3D CAD and in producing released, manufacturable design definitions with sound GD&T, and tolerance stack-ups.
  • Experience with structural and thermal analysis, both FEA and hand calculations, validated against test data.
  • Experience selecting materials and manufacturing processes for high-stress, high-cycle applications.
  • Hands-on experience taking hardware from design through build and test.
  • Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Skills

Required:Turbopump hardware designArchitecture tradesRotordynamicsFinite Element AnalysisGD&T and manufacturabilityTest planning and executionCross-functional collaboration
Nice to have:Root cause investigation

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 Sep 6, 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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