What You'll Do- Contribute to the design, iteration, and qualification ofKatalyst's spacecraft Electrical Power System (EPS), including power conversion, power distribution, battery interface electronics, solar array interfaces, protection circuitry, and subsystem power interfaces.
- Design,modify, and review schematics, PCB layouts, interface definitions, and analysis packages for spacecraft power electronics, with emphasis on switch-mode power supplies, DC/DC converters, load switching, current sensing, fault protection, and EMI-aware layout practices.
- Support integrated operation of EPS hardware during functional, performance, and qualification testing, working directly with test engineers to execute bench, thermal vacuum, vibration, and other qualification test campaigns.
- Help own integrated functional testing of EPS hardware with avionics, flight software, mechanisms, payloads, and other spacecraft subsystems, ensuring power interfaces behave correctly across nominal, off-nominal, and fault cases.
- Plan and execute targeted stress, margin, and performance testing, exercising hardware across design extremes such as input voltage range, load transients, thermal limits, startup sequencing, fault response, and converter stability.
- Help define design changes and architecture improvements for future spacecraft power systems, including EPS feature upgrades, power budget impacts, redundancy considerations, telemetry needs, and mission-specific power requirements.
Your Ideal Background- Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or equivalent field.
- 3+ years of experience designing, testing, or integrating power electronics, spacecraft EPS hardware, battery/solar power interfaces, or closely related high-reliability power systems.
- Strong understanding of switch-mode power supply design, DC/DC converter architectures, compensation/stability, magneticsselection, protection circuitry, and practical power electronics debugging.
- Experience designing ormodifying schematics and PCB layouts for power electronics, including high-current routing, grounding, thermal considerations, creepage/clearance, current sensing, and EMI/EMC-aware layout practices.
- Proficiency in Altium or a similar ECAD tool for schematic capture, PCB layout review, design release, and documentation.
- Exposure to spacecraft or embedded-system power architectures, including power distribution, load switching, battery management interfaces, solar array regulation, or power telemetry.
- Exposure to common digital communication standards (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, Ethernet) and mixed-signal design best practices for telemetry, control, and power-system interfaces.
- Hands-on experience with hardware bring-up, bench testing, and debugging using oscilloscopes, electronic loads, power supplies, DMMs, logic analyzers, and related lab equipment.
- Experience writing or executing test procedures, documenting results, and driving board- or component-level troubleshooting through root cause and corrective action.
- Experience integrating power electronics with other spacecraft or embedded subsystems; exposure to environmental testing such as thermal vacuum or vibration is a plus but not required.
Additional Requirements: Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed.
Compensation and Benefits: Your base salary will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: job-related knowledge and skills, education, and experience. The anticipated salary range for this role is $105,000 - $145,000 annually.
Base salary is just one part of your total rewards package at Katalyst. You will also be eligible for long-term incentives, in the form of the Employee Stock Option and Equity Plan, as well as a relocation bonus and other discretionary bonuses. You will also receive access to comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, and unlimited Paid Time Off.
