Mission Engineering Associate (Fall 2026)

About the role

Astranis builds advanced satellites for high orbits, expanding humanity’s reach into the solar system. Today, Astranis satellites provide dedicated, secure networks to highly-sophisticated customers across the globe— large enterprises, sovereign governments, and the US military. With five satellites on orbit and many more set to launch soon, the company is servicing a backlog of more than $1 billion of commercial contracts. Astranis is the preferred satellite communications partner for buyers with stringent requirements for uptime, data security, network visibility, and customization. Astranis has raised over $750 million from some of the world’s best investors, from Andreessen Horowitz to Blackrock and Fidelity, and employs a team of 450 engineers and entrepreneurs. Astranis designs, builds, and operates its satellites out of its 153,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Northern California, USA.

Mission Engineering Associate (Fall 2026)

Associate Engineer positions typically last for twelve weeks, and are salaried roles designed for students who have already received a bachelor's degree (or who will have done so before working at Astranis). The Mission Engineering team additionally requires that applicants be pursuing graduate studies to be considered for the role. As an Associate Engineer, you will have an amazing opportunity to work on hard problems — we pride ourselves on giving everyone at Astranis a chance to do meaningful work on complex projects, and our Associate Engineers work on projects that are of equal importance and difficulty to the projects we give our full-time employees. Many past Associate Engineers have designed and tested hardware/software that went to space on our satellites, and many now work at Astranis full-time. If you are still a college student, please apply to join us as an Intern.

Successful candidates will have a proven track record of projects in the aerospace field and a strong background in Python.

Role:

Work with mission engineers to design, create, test, and execute satellite operations procedures, including commissioning procedures and nominal operations procedures

Investigate anomalies and work with the mission operations and engineering team to safely resolve them

Participate in commanding activities of our first five operational spacecraft

Help develop tools and processes to enable the Mission Operations team to maintain a high level of service uptime for our customer

Automate manual processes using scripting and software tools

Requirements:

Have a B.S. degree in an engineering, physics, or computer science related major.

Pursuing a graduate degree

Demonstrated interest or experience in aerospace through hands-on experience with space systems, spacecraft operations, or mission design

Experience in scripting with Python

Basic understanding of satellite systems

Highly motivated, self-starting, and able to perform duties without supervision

A passion for working in a fast-paced environment and hands-on development and testing

Don't meet them all? Not a problem. Please apply even if you do not meet all these criteria.

Bonus:

Experience doing telemetry analysis and anomaly investigations

Experience building operational software tools and user-friendly UIs

Experience with software development tools such as Git and AI coding agents

The base salary for this position is $1,925 per week.

Base Salary
$1,925 $1,925 USD

U.S. Citizenship, Lawful Permanent Residency, or Refugee/Asylee Status Required

(To comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the United States, or other protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3))

Our mission and our products are meant to connect the world and everyone in it, regardless of gender, race, creed, or any other distinction. We believe in a diverse and inclusive workplace, and we encourage all people to join our team and bring their unique perspective to help make us stronger.