Senior Designer - Vehicle Design

Back to jobs Senior Designer - Vehicle Design Auckland, NZ Apply ABOUT ROCKET LAB Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems that keep the world connected, protected, expand humanity’s reach to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. We move fast, build real hardware for meaningful missions, and make the impossible routine. Come shape the future with us. ABOUT THE ROLE Electron's high launch cadence means great design work doesn't sit on a shelf. It flies. The Electron Vehicle Development team performs the mechanical hardware design and development of Electron and its related payload and mission objectives. This multidisciplinary team brings together design, test and development, structural analysis (static and dynamic), configuration control and project engineering. The team works closely with engineering and production teams across Rocket Lab to bring new concepts to life and to solve production issues through design and process improvement. Based in our Auckland Production Complex, the Senior Designer - Vehicle Design will strongly influence the design of Electron's primary and secondary structures, mechanisms, and fluids components and systems. You'll make design changes that improve performance, reduce risk and lower manufacturing cost, develop mission-specific configurations for customer payloads, and resolve quality issues from the production floor. Few roles anywhere offer this level of end-to-end hardware development, or the chance to see your designs reach space so often. This is a senior role with real influence. You'll lead design projects without supervision, set the direction for significant development projects, and help define the standard of design excellence for the team. You'll also mentor less experienced engineers and be trusted to step in as deputy for the team lead when needed. WHAT YOU'LL GET TO DO:

Make design changes to the Electron vehicle and associated hardware to improve performance, reduce risk or reduce manufacturing cost. Design primary and secondary structures, mechanisms, and fluids components and systems. Define design requirements, and design prototype parts and tooling as required. Develop mission-specific configurations for customer payloads. Address quality issues that arise on the production floor through design and process improvements. Contribute to design documentation, including FMEAs, P&IDs and ICDs. Lead design projects without supervision, building strong stakeholder buy-in and collaboration across the company. Set the design direction for significant development projects and coordinate them. Maintain design data for the components and systems you're responsible for. Improve design processes and help develop our key design tools, particularly NX CAD and Teamcenter, to cut non-value-added effort from the design and engineering process. Mentor less experienced members of the team and role model high standards of design methodology and documentation. Get hands-on with general design, construction and assembly tasks. No task is beneath us.

A Bachelor's degree with honours in Aerospace, Mechanical or Mechatronics Engineering. 5+ years' engineering experience. Significant experience modelling in 3D CAD software, ideally NX CAD, and an associated PLM solution such as Teamcenter. A creative, analytical approach and strong problem-solving skills. The ability to work on your own initiative and plan your own workflow to deliver higher-level goals. Clear communication skills, with the ability to steer technical discussions and decisions. The ability to stay calm under pressure. The flexibility to adapt as business priorities change. A positive, "How can I help?" attitude and a drive to keep raising the standard of excellence.

Experience with pressurised mechanical systems. Experience with mechanical moving