Dynamics Engineer

About the company

K2 Space is a manufacturer of large, high-power satellites.

About this role

<div class="content-intro"><p data-renderer-start-pos="41">K2 is building the largest and highest-power satellites ever flown, unlocking performance levels previously out of reach across every orbit. Backed by over $1 billion in total funding from leading investors including Altimeter Capital, ICONIQ, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and T. Rowe Price — and with over $1 billion in signed contracts across commercial and US government customers, we're mass-producing the highest-power satellite platforms ever built for missions from LEO to deep space.</p> <p data-renderer-start-pos="570">The rise of heavy-lift launch vehicles is shifting the industry from an era of mass constraint to one of mass abundance, and we believe this new era demands a fundamentally different class of spacecraft. Engineered to survive the harshest radiation environments and to fully capitalize on today's and tomorrow's massive rockets, K2 satellites deliver unmatched capability at constellation scale and across multiple orbits.</p> <p data-renderer-start-pos="994">With multiple launches in 2027 and plans to scale to 100 satellites a year, we're Building Bigger — helping develop the solar system and build toward a Kardashev Type II (K2) civilization. If you are a motivated individual who thrives in a fast-paced environment and you're excited about contributing to the success of a high-growth Series D-funded company, we'd love for you to apply.</p></div><p><strong>The Role</strong></p> <p>As a member of our growing dynamics team, you will help own the successful derivation of loads and environments for K2 Space satellites during ground transportation, launch, deployment, and on-orbit operation. You will build software tools and establish simulation workflows to support a variety of analyses in frequency and time domains. Within your first couple of months you will devise development testing to correlate physics models with measured data. You will also own qualification and acceptance testing of satellite hardware at the component and vehicle level. As we continue to refine our designs and scale for the future you will be responsible for delivering well-derived requirements and engineering insights to make reliable and mass-producible spacecraft.</p> <p><strong>Responsibilities</strong></p> <ul> <li style="line-height: 2;">Support dynamic testing at the component and subsystem level, including test planning and coordination, test analysis, and model correlation</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Develop physics models using finite element analysis (e.g., Nastran) or custom-built software (e.g., Python)</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Create software tools to support data processing and simulation frameworks</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Collaborate with design engineers, analysts, and external customers to develop satellite products</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Apply first principles in developing frameworks for both dynamics and non-dynamics analyses</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Contribute to code reviews for simulation and analysis tools</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Utilize analysis and test to provide data-driven engineering guidance and decisions</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Write high-quality technical documentation of test and simulations</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Support derivation of loads, environments, and other dynamics-driven design and test criteria, including vibration, shock, and jitter maximum predicted environments and response-limit derivation (e.g., NASA 7004C)</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Support coupled loads analysis (CLA), including superelement/Craig-Bampton model builds</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Assist with jitter and pointing performance analysis, including Monte Carlo dispersion modeling</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Assist with vibroacoustic analysis, including patch-method framework development</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Support modal test and analysis activities, including ground and flight test correlation</li> </ul> <p><strong>Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li style="line-height: 2;">Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, physics, or mathematics</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">1+ years of work experience in dynamics either from industry, research, internships or academic projects</li> </ul> <p><strong>Nice to have</strong></p> <ul> <li style="line-height: 2;">Master’s degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, physics, or mathematics</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Strong understanding of low and high frequency dynamics (vibration, shock, modal testing)</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Experience with testing and measurements</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Experience with finite element analysis software (e.g. FEMAP, Nastran)</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Software development experience in Python</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Strong knowledge of digital signal processing, statistics, and structural mechanics</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Capable of identifying and solving complex problems with little to no supervision or direction</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Excellent communication skills of analysis and test insights.</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Ability to work in a fast-paced, unstructured start-up environment.</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Exposure to coupled loads analysis (CLA) and Craig-Bampton/superelement model reduction techniques</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Exposure to jitter and pointing performance analysis and Monte Carlo methods for dispersion modeling</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Familiarity with rigid-body dynamics and GNC-coupled analysis concepts</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Exposure to multibody dynamics simulation concepts, including rigid-body dynamics; familiarity with LS-DYNA is a plus</li> <li style="line-height: 2;">Exposure to vibroacoustic analysis concepts (e.g., patch method, Statistical Energy Analy