Senior Powerpack Engineer

About the company

Cowboy Space is a startup building orbital data-center satellites and an in-house rocket program to launch them.

About this role

SENIOR POWERPACK ENGINEER | JOB DESCRIPTION Cowboy Space Corp. is building the infrastructure to power and connect the orbital economy. Our satellites operate in Low Earth Orbit to collect sunlight and enable a new class of capabilities—from powering on-orbit compute, to transmitting energy via infrared lasers (space-to-earth and space-to-space), powering on-orbit compute to delivering secure, high-bandwidth optical data. By rethinking how energy and data are generated and distributed in space, we’re unlocking entirely new ways to operate both in orbit and on Earth. Founded in 2024 by Baiju Bhatt (co-founder of Robinhood), Cowboy Space Corp. is backed by leading investors and built by a team from top aerospace and defense organizations. We’re moving quickly to solve complex technical challenges and build a new category of space infrastructure. About the Role: The turbopump is the heart of the engine and sets its performance ceiling. In this role you own turbopump hardware outright: its design definition, its interfaces, the analysis that backs it, and how it performs in build and on the stand. You will work the full lifecycle, from architecture trades and detailed design through fabrication, hot fire, and flight, and you will own the case that the hardware meets its requirements. Senior engineers here also set the technical bar for the people around them, reviewing design work and bringing along the Level I and Level II engineers on the team. This is where you put your name on flight hardware. Responsibilities: - Bring a culture of creativity to every design challenge. Own each solution or improvement with true accountability, seeing it through to completion. - Own the mechanical design and development of turbopump hardware from concept through hot fire testing and flight: inducers, impellers, diffusers, volutes, turbine stages, dynamic seals, bearing supports, pump housings and assemblies. - Lead architecture trades on the pump and turbine, including shaft speed, stage count, specific speed, bearing and seal arrangement, and how each of those choices lands against the engine cycle. - Integrate hydro, aero, structures, rotordynamics, secondary flow, thermal, and bearing constraints into a single design definition the rest of the team can build to. - Perform and direct analysis: hand calculations, FEA, rotordynamic models, secondary flow and axial thrust balance, and life prediction for high-stress, high-cycle hardware. - Own the verification argument for your hardware. Decide what closes by analysis and what has to close on the stand, write the plan, and see both through. - Select materials and manufacturing processes for cryogenic, high-speed, high-stress service, including castings, forgings, and additive parts. - Generate detailed component and assembly drawings, design definitions, process specifications, and interface control documents. - Drive hardware through fabrication and build: vendor engagement, first article review, and nonconformance disposition. - Define and execute component and engine test campaigns. Author instrumentation requests, support test days in real time, reduce the data, and compare it against prediction. - Lead root cause investigations on turbopump anomalies and carry the corrective action into both the design and the build paper. - Control configuration and pedigree across build, test, and refurbishment, including the inspection criteria that gate hardware for reuse. - Work directly with machinists and technicians on the floor to improve producibility and keep iteration fast. - Review the design work of Level I, Level II, and Level III engineers and raise the standard of the team's design definitions. Basic Qualifications: - Bachelor's degree in Aerospace, Mechanical, or related engineering field. - Strong grounding in turbomachinery fundamentals: hydrodynamic and aerodynamic performance, rotordynamics, secondary flow, and structural life. - Proficiency in 3D CAD and in producing released, manufacturable design definitions with sound geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T), and tolerance stack-ups. - Experience with structural and thermal analysis, both FEA and hand calculations, validated against test data. - Experience selecting materials and manufacturing processes for high-stress, high-cycle applications. - Hands-on experience taking hardware from design through build and test. - Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum. Preferred Qualifications: - 8+ years of turbomachinery or turbopump experience. - Master's degree or Ph.D. in Aerospace, Mechanical, or related engineering field. - Experience with liquid rocket engine turbopumps or reusable propulsion systems. - Experience taking a turbopump from a clean sheet through first hot fire. - Experience mentoring early career engineers and reviewing their design releases. - Experience with adjacent rotating machinery. Gas turbines, industrial pumps, compressors, and turbochargers all build fundamentals that carry over to turbopump design. - Experience with detailed design and analysis of fluid components (inducers, impellers, diffusers, volutes, turbines, and secondary flow), dynamic seals, and rotor support structures. - Experience with rotordynamics, bearing selection, and axial thrust balance on high-speed rotors. - Experience with cryogenic hardware design and cryogenic material behavior. - Experience leading root cause investigations on hardware you owned and carrying the corrective action through to closure. - Experience with additive manufacturing, castings, and forgings for rotating hardware. - Experience at a fast-moving, hardware-focused startup or early-stage program. Compensation and Benefits The salary range for this position is $165,000 – $210,000 annually. The actual base salary offered will depend on fa