Director of Structures and Mechanisms

Outpost is an orbital logistics company rewriting the rules of global logistics by building reusable Earth-return vehicles that unlock in-space manufacturing, on-orbit warehousing, and 60-minute global delivery through space.

Our CarryAll vehicle family returns payloads ranging from 200 kilograms to 10 metric tons, lands within 10 meters of its target, and can then be refurbished and launched again. One vehicle, many missions: responsive logistics and precision delivery for national security; commercial cargo moved with real cadence; R&D payloads flown, tested, and refined across repeatable cycles; and critical aid delivered where roads and runways can’t reach.

The demand is already here, validated through defense and civil agreements and supported by a growing pipeline of government and commercial customers.

We have the customers, the team, and a clear technical path ahead of us. We’re building the return lane. Come build it with us.

• →Build, grow, and lead the Structures & Mechanisms organization. Recruit, mentor, and develop engineers across multiple sub-disciplines (primary structure, mechanisms, TPS, analysis).
• →Serve as the final sign-off for the structural architecture of the vehicle, including primary structure, interfaces to the deployable heatshield, secondary structures, deployable mechanisms, and payload bay.
• →Partner cross-functionally to resolve system-level trades. Represent Structures in executive reviews, customer milestone reviews, and with government stakeholders.
• →Establish and enforce analysis standards across the team, hand calculations, FEA (ANSYS/FEMAP/NASTRAN), stiffness, buckling, fatigue, and thermal expansion compatibility. Be the final technical check on margin policy and verification logic.
• →Own the release process and quality bar for mechanical manufacturing drawings and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (ASME Y14.5) across the department.
• →Coordinate with the production team on structural qualification campaign end-to-end, static load, random vibration, shock, deployment, and environmental testing, to certify hardware for flight.
• →Coordinate with the production team to stablish strategic relationships with machine shops, composite vendors, and external partners. Support make-vs-buy decisions and ensure supply chain resilience for precision flight hardware.
• →Brief the CEO, board, customers, and government partners on structural design, risk posture, and program status. 

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Mechanical, Aerospace, or Structural Engineering.
• 10+ years of experience in the design and analysis of complex aerospace structures and mechanisms, with at least 3+ years in a management or technical leadership role leading multi-disciplined engineering teams.
• Proven track record leading structures on space vehicles or rockets.
• Demonstrated experience hiring, scaling, and mentoring engineering teams of 5+ engineers; comfortable setting OKRs, running performance reviews, and managing costs.
• Expert-level fluency in Siemens NX, SolidWorks, or similar parametric modeling software, with the ability to drive standards across the team.
• Experience in structural analysis (FEA) and classical hand calculations. You must trust your hand calcs before you trust the solver.
• Working knowledge of aerospace materials (aluminum, titanium, inconel, composites) and their behavior in extreme thermal environments.
• Deep command of CNC machining, sheet metal, and welding with a design-for-manufacturing mindset you can instill across the org.

• Active U.S. Government Security Clearance (not required, but beneficial).
• Experience with deployable space structures and mechanisms (booms, solar arrays, antennas, or aerobrakes).
• Experience in taking primary structure from concept through PDR/CDR to flight.
• Experience designing for high-heat environments or integrating with Thermal Protection Systems (TPS).
• Deep knowledge of aerospace standards (NASA-STD-5000 series, SMC-S-016) for structural margins and testing.
• Prior experience as a Director, Chief Engineer, or department head at a launch, reentry, satellite, or hypersonics company.