Spacecraft Power Electronics Engineer

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.
• 3-5 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:

At Katalyst, we believe our team should share in the value they help create. In addition to a competitive base salary, employees are eligible to participate in our Employee Stock Option and Equity Plan, providing the opportunity for long-term ownership in the company’s success.

The anticipated base salary range for this position is $105,000–$145,000 annually. Individual compensation is determined based on relevant experience, education, job-related knowledge and skills, and the responsibilities of the role.

Our benefits and perks include:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Employee stock options and long-term equity incentives
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Unlimited paid time off
• Paid parental leave
• Relocation assistance, when applicable
• Eligibility for discretionary bonuses
• Catered team lunch every Wednesday

Our total rewards package is designed to support your health, financial well-being, work-life balance, and long-term growth alongside Katalyst.