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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Systems Engineer, Spacecraft Design & Simulation - **Company:** Vast, Inc - **Location:** United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $112,340.0 - $159,468.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Systems Engineering, Code Generation, Data Visualization, Eclipse (Software), Regression Testing, Software Tools, Requirements Management, Software Engineering, Software Systems, Digital Twin, Kepler, Orbital Mechanics - **Published:** September 4, 2026 - **Apply:** https://startup.jobs/systems-engineer-spacecraft-design-simulation-vast-8010993 ## About the Role * Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a related technical discipline * 4+ years of spacecraft systems engineering or mission analysis experience * Spacecraft systems engineer with broad subsystem knowledge - you understand power, thermal, ADCS, and orbital mechanics well enough to catch errors in a simulation * Strong analytical skills - you can set up a hand calculation for a thermal equilibrium problem, a power budget across an orbit, or a pointing error budget * Rigorous validation mindset - you're the person who asks "how do we know this is right?" and builds the test to prove it * Comfortable with AI-assisted development workflows * Generalist background - prior experience at a small-sat company, research lab, or mission design role where you touched multiple subsystems * Cross-functional collaboration skills - you'll work with every discipline lead to capture their domain knowledge and translate it into validated models * Comfortable reading and reviewing code - you don't need a software engineering background, but you should be able to understand what code is doing and catch errors Preferred Skills & Experience: * Able to obtain a security clearance * Experience building or maintaining spacecraft simulation tools * Familiarity with orbital mechanics (Kepler solver, J2 perturbations, eclipse geometry) * Familiarity with CMG dynamics, quaternion attitude propagation * Experience with data visualization tools or libraries * Demonstrated use of AI-assisted code generation tools on an engineering project - show us what you built * Requirements management and verification experience on a spacecraft mission * Experience with MBSE tools or model-based development methodologies * Experience scaling engineering tools or analysis workflows across a growing team * Experience developing validation and verification test suites for engineering tools ## Description We're building a mission factory - software infrastructure that dramatically reduces the time from customer contract to payload on orbit. The foundation is a simulation and digital twin toolchain that serves as the primary engineering record. Requirements, budgets, design parameters, and trade study results all live in this toolchain. It includes spacecraft power/thermal/ADCS simulation, orbital constellation analysis, communications link budgets, and actuator trade studies. This is model-based systems engineering as it should work - requirements, budgets, and design parameters live in executable models that compute and validate, not in static documents. A working prototype exists today - you'll evaluate it, determine whether to extend it or redesign it, and own the toolchain as we scale from our first 10-satellite demo launch to hundreds of spacecraft per year. This is a spacecraft systems engineering role, not a software engineering role. You define the governing equations, boundary conditions, and expected behavior for each model. You build and maintain a rigorous validation suite - hand calculations, independent tool cross-checks, and edge case analysis - that serves as the quality gate for every change. We use AI code generation tools to accelerate implementation, but the engineering judgment, validation methodology, and physics expertise are yours. Responsibilities: * Own and evolve the spacecraft design, simulation, and digital twin toolchain - power, thermal, ADCS, orbital mechanics, constellation coverage, link budgets, mass and design margin tracking * Make the toolchain the hub of the engineering organization - every discipline (thermal, GNC, power, structures) should be able to run trade studies and assess design changes quickly as the program evolves * Drive design trades and architecture decisions through analysis - your models are how the team knows whether the power budget closes, whether the thermal architecture works, and whether we meet customer requirements * Enable rapid iteration as customer requirements and the design evolve - the toolchain must keep pace with the program so engineers can assess impact immediately, not wait weeks for analysis * Maintain the digital twin as the program's engineering record - requirements, budgets, design parameters, and trade study results live here * Build and maintain a rigorous validation suite - hand calculations, independent tool cross-checks, edge case analysis, and regression testing for every physics model * Train and support the engineering team so they can self-serve on trade studies and analysis ## Related Videos - [Robots are coming into the wild! 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