Power the future of space at Star Catcher
Star Catcher is building the first energy grid in space to power the orbital economy.
Today’s spacecraft must generate all of their own power, which caps what they can do and how long they can operate. But what if they could “plug” into a grid, the way buildings do on Earth? Instead of cables and outlets, Star Catcher is building the technology to wirelessly beam energy to spacecraft’s existing solar panels when and where they need it.
Be an early member of a team building an entirely new energy infrastructure at scale to power the next frontier.
Star Catcher Industries, Inc., located in Jacksonville, Florida, has an opportunity for an Electrical Engineer - Power Electronics to support the development of space-to-space power beaming spacecraft and the Star Catcher Network, its orbital power grid.
Key Responsibilities
- Design, architect, and/or execute power electronics circuits; including high-power DC-DC converters, regulators, and power conditioning systems and/or low-voltage power supplies for FPGA/digital electronics, RF, and other mixed-signal cards.
- Design and develop isolated and non-isolated power conversion topologies including AC/DC converters, DC/DC converters, battery chargers, and power management circuits.
- Conduct component selection and design trade studies for power semiconductors, magnetics, ICs, filters, and protection circuitry.
- Simulate and analyze power circuits for efficiency, thermal performance, control loop stability, EMI/EMC, and transient response.
- Support schematic capture, PCB layout, and thermal/EMI analysis for power electronics hardware, ensuring good design practices for high-current, high-voltage, and low-noise applications.
- Build and test breadboard/prototype power hardware through EMI/EMC, TVAC, and vibration qualification.
- Create and execute test plans for prototype bring-up, characterization, verification, and qualification of power electronics hardware.
- Troubleshoot power supply performance issues in the lab and support root cause and corrective action activities.
- Support component selection and qualification for high-reliability, radiation-tolerant power hardware.
- Prepare technical documentation including design reports, analysis summaries, test procedures, and released engineering data.
Basic Qualifications
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related technical discipline.
- Experience: 5+ years of professional experience in power electronics design, ideally with high-power or high-current regulators and power conditioning systems.
- Exposure to architecting power designs from requirements.
Technical Expertise
- Working knowledge of switching power supply topologies (e.g., buck, boost, forward, flyback, full-bridge).
- Familiarity with high-voltage design considerations for space, including creepage and clearance standards.
- Experience with schematic capture and PCB layout using EDA tools (e.g., Altium Designer or equivalent).
- Working knowledge of thermal management, EMI/EMC, and grounding practices in power systems.
- Hands-on power-hardware debugging using oscilloscopes, current probes, appropriately rated high-voltage differential probes, electronic loads, and frequency response analyzers or equivalent tools.
- Comfortable both architecting power solutions independently and executing under an established architecture, depending on project needs, in a fast-paced environment.
Desired Skills
- Exposure to satellite EPS architecture, battery management systems, or solar array regulators.
- Experience with high-power laser, directed energy, or optical payload power supplies.
- Experience testing or qualifying hardware in thermal-vacuum (TVAC) chambers.
- Familiarity with aerospace testing/qualification standards (MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-810, NASA GEVS, IPC J-STD-001 Space Addendum).
- Experience designing low-voltage power supplies for digital/FPGA or RF electronics cards.
Help us deploy and scale space infrastructure that will drive our utilization of space forward! We offer a highly competitive benefits package including access to comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, 401(k) retirement plan, life insurance, and paid parental leave, in addition to other benefits.
Star Catcher is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Star Catcher is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.
All offers of employment at Star Catcher are contingent upon results of a thorough background check and your ability to provide proof of eligibility to work in the US.
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.