Physics lab assistant
| Highest | $3,800 / mo · United States |
|---|---|
| Experience | 0–1 yrs |
| Degree | Required |
| First paycheck | 3.5 years of dual vocational training (Ausbildung) or 3 to 4 years of university study |
Pay in the destination countries
Monthly, in US dollars. Each country is an Imora admission package — open one for that route's fees, language requirement and deadline.
What does the day look like?
Your day centres on operating Thermal Vacuum Chambers (TVAC) to simulate orbital depressurisation and temperature cycles, alongside cleaning and calibrating optoelectronic and environmental sensors such as spectrometers, magnetometers, and accelerometers. You prepare ISO 5 to ISO 8 cleanrooms using particle counters, ultrasonic cleaning baths, and de-ionising blowers. You also mount test payloads on vibration shakers, wire test harnesses, and record telemetry using Keysight or Tektronix oscilloscopes, National Instruments LabVIEW, and MATLAB.
Hands-on work with actual flight hardware takes up only 15% of your working hours. The remaining 85% consists of routine tasks: logging data into spreadsheets, running vacuum chamber pump-down checks, sterilising cleanroom surfaces, and writing shift handover checklists. Because thermal-vacuum bake-out tests run continuously for 48 to 120 hours, technicians work rotating 8-hour or 12-hour shifts, which include night duty and weekend coverage during active testing campaigns.
Where does this lead?
Next step up
What do you make of this job?