The Company
Astra's mission is to improve life on Earth from space by creating a healthier and more connected planet. Astra delivered its first commercial payload into Earth orbit in 2021, making it the fastest company in history to reach this milestone, just five years after being founded in 2016. By achieving monthly, weekly, then daily launches, we'll create the infrastructure services our customers need in space to build a healthier and more connected planet. If you're excited by a sense of possibility, the chance to innovate, and make a difference here on Earth, we think you should work here too.
The Team
Astra leads the industry in applying agile iterative development to space launch systems. Astra's System Engineering team is at the center of this process: orchestrating the technical details for our current and future rockets, engaging in immediate and long-term analysis to determine what rockets to build and when, managing all requirements across the entire company, and leading high level engineering reviews. We work in close collaboration with a wide spectrum of stakeholders both inside and outside of Astra, delivering answers bound by physics and engineering. Our input is vital to making sure we are building the right thing.
The Opportunity

• As one of Astra's Senior Systems Engineers, you will contribute to improving our processes and advancing engineering excellence across our development program. Some of the areas you will contribute to include:
• Participate and guide system design and development at all stages of development lifecycle
• Use Systems Engineering methods and tools to develop systems engineering products such as requirements decomposition, system architecture; specifications, systems engineering and program plans, interfaces, risk assessment and mitigation, validation and verification planning, overall integration, etc.
• Apply interdisciplinary, collaborative approaches to plan, coordinate, design, develop and verify complex systems solutions
• Develop system-level trade studies to inform Astra's product roadmap, specifying the most important high-level features of the next iterations of our launch system
• Run and analyze trajectories and other system analyses for future rockets and launch sites
• Develop architectural diagrams and products like Concept of Operations and system use cases to establish architecture definition and design
• Participate in specialty engineering (operability, reliability, maintainability, supportability) integration, analysis and verification
• Implement verification & validation and master test plans
• Lead teams to define and disseminate interface control documentation, allowing systems to communicate effectively as we scale faster than ever
• Engage with leads and teammates across engineering disciplines
• Assist with definition and coordination of system performance requirements and technical parameters.
• You will truly enjoy what you do, be flexible and communicative. This role has extensive cross-functional interaction to drive strategies down to execution while keeping up the pace of Astra.

How You'll Fulfill Your Mission

• Partner: with our Engineering and Product teams to create impactful models that will make a difference in how Astra operates and give your perspective on how the teams should best do their work
• Build: the models that will inform engineering trades in support of engineering requirements for the whole launch system
• Collaborate: across the Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations and Product organizations to Integrate and ensure our product Integrates and meets the design Intent
• Develop: Create and oversee processes that will enable Astra to stay disciplined in our system requirements management

Why We Value You

• Minimum of a B.S. degree in engineering or another technical field
• 5+ years system development/integration experience - preferably with aerospace hardware or complex technical systems
• Experience/domain knowledge of system architecture, requirements, interface definition, verification, and validation, risk, issues and opportunities management and trade studies.
• Experience with systems engineering tools such as JAMA, JIRA, DOORS, DNG, or similar
• You are not afraid of technical details, you learn fast, and you are motivated to understand every aspect of your product
• You thoughtfully and thoroughly engage all stakeholders in decision-making and effectively build alignment around decisions
• You bring a structured approach to ambiguous problems, turning head-scratchers into solvable problems with clear next steps

Desired Multipliers

• M.S or PhD in engineering or another technical field relevant to orbital launch vehicles and satellites
• Hands on hardware test and integration experience
• Experience working with DoDAF or SysML for system development
• Experience in reliability, maintainability and supportability analysis and execution
• System Safety analysis experience including Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis, Fault Tree Analysis, and Functional Hazard Analysis
• Demonstrated configuration management experience
• Experience in high growth / startup environments

You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Astra, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.
ITAR Requirements: This position requires compliance with U.S. Government space technology trade restrictions, specifically the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and additional regulations governing satellite, launch vehicle, missile, and other related technologies. All jobs restricted by these regulations will be contingent upon the applicant's status as a documented U.S. Person or their ability to receive a trade license from the cognizant government agency; in addition to any required company background checks and in compliance with applicable U.S. and California laws. Similarly, positions requiring the ability to work on government contracts or a security clearance are also contingent upon the applicants ability to receive the appropriate clearance and be allowed to work on U.S. government contracts.
You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Astra, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.
San Francisco Applicants: Astra will consider applicants with arrest and conviction records (criminal histories) in a manner consistent with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.