Payload engineer
| Highest | $7,800 / mo · United States |
|---|---|
| Experience | 2–4 yrs |
| Degree | Required |
| First paycheck | 4 years bachelor's + 2 years master's (MSc) |
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?
Around 25% of working hours represents the hands-on engineering side: working in ISO Class 5 to ISO Class 8 cleanrooms to assemble, integrate, and test (AIT) cameras, radar arrays, or transponders. You oversee tests on electrodynamic shaker tables and inside thermal vacuum chambers (TVAC, cycling from -40 to +80 degrees Celsius down to 10^-6 mbar). You also run simulations using MATLAB/Simulink, Ansys HFSS, Zemax OpticStudio, or Thermal Desktop / SINDA, and process test telemetry with Python and C/C++.
The remaining 75% of your time is spent on administrative engineering routines. This involves tracking mass, power, and thermal budgets, drafting Interface Control Documents (ICD), verifying ECSS standards compliance, and preparing design review slide packs for Preliminary and Critical Design Reviews (PDR/CDR). Normal working hours are 40 hours per week (08:30 to 17:00, Monday through Friday). However, 24/7 environmental testing campaigns running 2 to 4 weeks require rotating 12-hour cleanroom shifts, while launch campaigns and early orbit operations (LEOP) demand 24/7 on-call availability and night work for 1 to 3 weeks.
Where does this lead?
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