Principal Mechanical Engineer - Space Special Programs
About the job
- At least 15 years of professional experience in hardware product development, including at least 5 years designing spaceflight hardware.
- Basic understanding of printed circuit board layout requirements for spaceflight mechanical and manufacturing requirements.
- Experience in ground-up system design and any 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software.
- Hands-on experience assembling, prototyping, testing, and characterizing the performance of mechanisms designed for zero-gravity operation in a one-gravity environment.
- Experience designing very small mechanisms, components, and systems.
- Familiarity with launch environments, launch-environment testing, range safety, and system integration efforts.
- Demonstrated creativity and out-of-the-box thinking for spacecraft mechanisms, with an emphasis on simplicity and reliability.
- Understanding of NASA General Environmental Verification Standard (NASA-GEVS) or equivalent, and firm understanding and experience with all facets of spaceflight environmental testing.
- Ability to work effectively with others.
- Ability to work within the company and team culture.
- Demonstrated high ownership and autonomy across the full lifecycle of a spacecraft or space-system mechanical subsystem.
- Must be a U.S. citizen and able to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance.
- Work with a cross-functional team to design market-leading hardware products.
- Drive product maturity through rapid prototyping, design verification, and qualification activities.
- Apply modern spaceflight hardware design standards and guidelines to create high-reliability, highly manufacturable assemblies, and ensure the team implements them.
- Implement structural components and mechatronics, with associated environmental testing to assure robustness across missions and characterize hardware performance envelopes.
- Use rapid prototyping, 3D printing, and hands-on machining as appropriate to iterate quickly.
- Conduct peer-level and cross-discipline design reviews and mentor the team.
- Conduct root-cause analysis in support of production operations.
- Manage multiple concurrent projects and customers in a fast-paced environment.
- Develop system mechanical designs, techniques, and standards.
- Design spacecraft and associated systems across the full cycle, including deriving requirements; 3D CAD; structural, thermal, and dynamic modeling; materials selection; fabrication supervision; initial assembly; testing, debugging, and system integration.
- Design deployment mechanisms for spacecraft and subsystems, including antennas and solar panels, as well as boxes, structures, and pressure vessels.
- Design, build, and test mechanical ground support equipment required to integrate, assemble, and test spacecraft in a high-rate manufacturing environment.
- Lead the engineering team’s capabilities in structural, thermal, and dynamic analysis; spacecraft structure and dispenser design; 3D CAD; design for fabrication and manufacture; prototyping and flight-article builds; and full qualification or acceptance test campaigns.
- Experience designing, integrating, and flying CubeSat spacecraft intended to operate in low Earth orbit through geostationary orbit environments.
- At least 1 year of experience working in a classified environment.
About the company
Anduril builds autonomous weapons, such as drones, cruise missiles, and robot submarines, for the US military and its allies, often developing them with its own money before any order arrives. In 2024 it beat Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman for an Air Force contract to develop Fury, a pilotless jet that flies alongside crewed fighters. Its Lattice software merges camera and radar feeds into one live map and lets a few operators direct many drones and weapons at once, including other companies' systems. Governments buy its systems under contract, and Anduril builds much of the hardware in its own factories. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey co-founded Anduril in 2017, and it is based in Costa Mesa, California.
Company Size
5,001-10,000
Company Stage
Private
Total Funding
$11.5B
Headquarters
Costa Mesa, California
Founded
2017
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Sales target almost doubles: May 2026 projections put Anduril's annual revenue at $4.3 billion, versus $2.2 billion in 2025.
- Expansion has fresh funding: Anduril raised $5 billion in May 2026, doubling its valuation to $61 billion.
- A long-term procurement path: a March 2026 Army deal allows up to $20 billion of Anduril purchases over 10 years.
What critics are saying
- Sales rest on few buyers: CEO Brian Schimpf told staff in February 2026, "We have just outrageously concentrated business."
- Systems have failed tests: a November 2025 Wall Street Journal report cited stalled drone boats and a 22-acre fire.
- Expect on-site, security-cleared work: only 33 of 2,470 open roles in October 2026 were remote; nearly two-thirds required clearance eligibility.
What makes Anduril unique
- It builds its own missile boosters: Anduril says its Mississippi plant made it America's third solid rocket motor supplier.
- Peter Thiel's firm backs it heavily: Founders Fund put $1 billion into Anduril in June 2025, its largest check ever.
- It began at the border: Customs and Border Protection runs 350-plus Sentry towers and ordered 200 more in June 2026.
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Benefits
Full Family Health Coverage
16 Weeks Paid Leave for All Caregivers
Family Planning & Support
Incentivized Time Off
Mental Health Resources
Financial Planning
Unlimited Provisions
Professional Development
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
6%1 year growth
0%2 year growth
0%Anduril Industries is offering current and former employees a chance to sell shares in a deal that could value the defence technology company at about $90 billion, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the plans. Anduril declined to comment. The tender offer prices shares at $94.80, with total purchases capped at about $1.3 billion. It runs from October 13 to November 9. The valuation is roughly 48% above the $61 billion set in May, when Anduril raised $5 billion in a round led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey and others, the company makes unmanned aircraft, autonomous systems, and surveillance equipment. It generated $2.2 billion in revenue in 2025. The offer extends to employees in 16 countries, up from three in earlier sales.
Anduril Industries, the defence startup founded by Oculus inventor Palmer Luckey, has won a $2.9 billion US Navy contract to build components for Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines. The company will invest $3.7 billion in a 2 million-square-foot shipyard at Sparrows Point, outside Baltimore. Called "Arsenal 2," the site will make Anduril a supplier to the two prime contractors for the submarines, Huntington Ingalls and General Dynamics. Operations are not expected to begin before 2030. Anduril already builds autonomous undersea vehicles. In 2024, it won an $18.6 million Navy contract to make Dive-LD vehicles in Rhode Island, aiming for 200 a year. The company has a private valuation of $61 billion, second only to General Dynamics among US military shipbuilders.
Leave a reply. Anduril unveils Steelfin missile family to counter ballistic, hypersonic threats. October 12, 2026, 00:06 PDT Anduril unveiled Steelfin, a family of surface-to-air interceptor missiles built around a common two-stage design, on October 12, 2026. The company says the family is intended to counter ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic threats. According to Anduril's announcement, each Steelfin variant pairs a first-stage booster with a second-stage terminal interceptor. The first stage can use different solid rocket motors depending on the required range, performance, and launch configuration. The second stage is common across the family, sharing the same basic airframe, avionics, software and flight control system. Anduril says the modular design also allows different seekers and mission systems to be integrated without redesigning the entire missile. Anduril targets thousands of interceptors per year. Anduril presents the shared architecture as a way to simplify manufacturing and increase production. By building the different Steelfin variants around common components and production processes, the company says it can shift manufacturing capacity between variants as demand changes. Anduril aims to produce several thousand Steelfin interceptors annually in the near term, although it has not announced firm production quantities or customer orders. The company also says Steelfin is designed to work with existing air defense launchers and software, potentially allowing operators to introduce the interceptors without developing entirely new supporting systems. Anduril has completed ballistic testing with representative air vehicles and plans to begin flight testing Steelfin variants in 2027. The company has not announced a date for operational deployment. US Army seeks new generation of missile interceptors. Anduril already has a role in US Army air defense modernization through its solid rocket motor business. Its motor powers the Boeing midrange interceptor that advanced to Phase 2 of the US Army's Integrated Fires Protection Capability (IFPC) Increment 2 Second Interceptor competition in September 2026. The Steelfin announcement also comes just three days after Lockheed Martin unveiled PAC-3 Edge, a new interceptor developed for the US Army's Future Interceptor program. Announced on October 9, 2026, PAC-3 Edge builds on the existing PAC-3 MSE missile, incorporating a new seeker developed by Lockheed Martin, a multi-pulse solid rocket motor from Northrop Grumman, and upgraded flight controls. The company says the improvements will extend the interceptor's range and altitude performance against advanced missile and hypersonic threats. Lockheed Martin said the US Army had selected PAC-3 Edge to advance to the next stage of development, with testing scheduled to begin in 2027 and deployment targeted by 2031. Both developments come as the Pentagon seeks to expand its missile defense capabilities while increasing production of existing systems. On August 31, 2026, the Pentagon signed seven-year framework agreements with Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics aimed at tripling Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) production capacity and quadrupling Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor capacity. On October 5, 2026, Boeing received a contract worth approximately $14.7 billion from Lockheed Martin to expand production of PAC-3 MSE seekers.
Anduril unveils interceptor missile family Steelfin to counter varied threats. Published on 10/12/2026 at 12:04 am EDT - Modified on 10/12/2026 at 12:08 am EDT Oct 12 (Reuters) - Defense tech firm Anduril unveiled on Monday its Steelfin family of configurable and scalable surface-to-air interceptor missiles designed to tackle diverse aerial threats, as the US looks to beef up military stockpiles amid the Middle East conflict. Steelfin's two-stage architecture features a first-stage booster for range, performance, and launch configurations and a second-stage terminal interceptor with airframe, avionics, and flight controls common across variants, Anduril said. Steelfin's common architecture allows the interceptors to move through the same production line, making it easier for Anduril to boost output of any variant, the company added in a statement. The defense contractor said it plans to produce on the order of several thousand Steelfin variants a year in the short term. This comes amid a broader push by US and its allies to expand arms production as growing demand for air and missile defense systems strains US weapons stockpiles. Lockheed Martin also unveiled a new missile interceptor on Friday, called the PAC-3 Edge, designed to defend against hypersonic and advanced missile threats. Anduril will begin flight testing Steelfin variants next year. It has already completed ballistic testing with representative air vehicles. (Reporting by Sumedha Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) (C) Reuters - 2026
Anduril unveils Steelfin interceptor as cheaper option to PAC-3 missiles. Anduril executives said the system can be "reconfigured" to be tailored toward defeating both low cost and exquisite systems. By Carley Welch on October 12, 2026 12:01 am WASHINGTON - Anduril today unveiled its new Steelfin interceptor, which company executives are aiming to cost a third of the price of the Patriot's current PAC-3 missile segment enhancement (MSE). "One-way attack drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons... our military and our allies' militaries are struggling with a set of legacy interceptors that are not scalable, and are not able to match the volume of the threat that they're facing," Chris Brose, Anduril's president and chief strategy officer, told reporters in a preview call ahead of the announcement. Brose said the company has "been working on Steefin for a couple of years," driven by a belief that the market would soon have a desire for cheaper interceptors. The new interceptor is "modular," Brose said, meaning it can fly with different rocket motors, different seekers and be launched from different platforms ranging from PAC-3, CAML and Typhoon systems to containerized munitions canisters. Brose said the system can be "reconfigured" to be tailored from defeating low-cost systems like the Iranian Shaheds to more exquisite systems like ballistic cruise missiles and hypersonic weapons. Steve Milano, the company's senior director of missiles, said the company is vying for the Army's low-cost interceptor program with the Steelfin. Anduril was one of many vendors chosen to move forward with testing and demonstrations following the service's recent xTech Apex Intercept competition - the event the Army held to try to find as many effective yet affordable interceptors as it could. However, there may be a different competition that Anduril is also running Steelfin in. On Friday, Breaking Defense first reported that Lockheed Martin and one other undisclosed company were selected for the Army's Future Interceptor program, a previously unknown effort which seeks to find a next-gen version of the current PAC-3 MSE. Anduril executives declined to comment on if the Steelfin was selected for the Future Interceptor program, however, Milano said the Steelfin is a "natural fit in that domain space." Under that competition, Milano said, the Army is looking for a seven to 10 inch terminal storage interceptor with a 10 to 13 inch booster to fit into the existing Patriot launcher and Common Autonomous Multi Domain Launcher (CAML), and Steelfin "fits very well" with those requirements. Regarding production, Milano said he expects Anduril to reach full rate production for the Steelfin at the end of 2028 or the beginning of 2029. He said he suspects "on the low end" the company will target producing "multiple thousands" of Steelfins per year, with a "higher end" of "closer to hundreds of thousands" per year, depending on the demand signal from the US and customers abroad. Milano said Anduril's "intent" is to build most of the sub assemblies for Steelfin at the company's Arsenal-1 facility in Ohio, and then do the "final integration" of the interceptor with a "handful of our partners." As to the solid rocket motors for Steelfin, Milano added that some will come from Anduril and some from other companies. "We've intentionally designed the Steelfin configuration with a modular mounting, so we can take in new providers as well as utilize our integrated and internal rocket motor systems," Milano explained.