Senior Space Vehicle Design Engineer

At Axient Systems, we are shaping the future of sovereign space capability. Based in Delft, at the heart of the Dutch aerospace ecosystem, we develop advanced satellite systems that support critical commercial and government missions. Our solutions enable secure communications, defence, security, and resilient infrastructure where performance and reliability are essential.

As a growing and ambitious organisation, we offer professionals the opportunity to contribute directly to innovative space projects that make a real impact on society, security, and technological progress.

We are looking for a senior design engineer who decides how a satellite is put together, and who draws it.

THE PROJECT

You will own the mechanical configuration of a high-performance optical satellite: where everything sits, how it mounts, how it is assembled, and what that means for every other discipline. From concept through detailed design and drawing release to the assembly floor.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

• The vehicle configuration: how the payload, the avionics, the propulsion, the arrays and the harness fit together, and why that arrangement and not another.

• The CAD master model of the vehicle: you build it, you keep it, and everyone else works from it.

• The primary and secondary structure design, together with our structural analysis engineers, whose results feed straight back into your model.

• The mechanical interfaces: to the launch vehicle, to the payload, to the supplied bus components, and between our own subsystems.

• The assembly and integration sequence: the order in which the vehicle is built, the access it needs, the handling points, and the tooling that follows from it.

• Manufacturing and producibility: drawings, tolerances and fits that our manufacturing partner can actually make, agreed with them rather than thrown over the wall.

• The drawing set and the as-designed configuration at the design reviews, including what changed since the last cycle.

You are the person who turns a set of requirements and boxes into one coherent machine. Analysis, thermal, electrical and AI&T colleagues all design against your configuration, and you against theirs.

YOU HAVE THE FOLLOWING DEMONSTRABLE COMPETENCIES

• You see a configuration in three dimensions before you draw it, and you can explain why the obvious arrangement is the wrong one.

• You are as comfortable with a hand sketch in a discussion as with a fully constrained CAD assembly.

• You design for the people who have to build, integrate and test it, not only for the analysis that has to pass.

• You keep a large CAD model disciplined: naming, structure, revisions and interfaces stay usable when five disciplines work in it.

• You take input from analysis, thermal and electrical colleagues and converge quickly rather than defending the first idea.

• You are precise about tolerances, alignment and what the drawing actually says

ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Eligible for a Dutch VGB-B clearance.

• Engineering degree in mechanical or aerospace engineering, or comparable experience.

• 8+ years of mechanical design of complex assemblies, with demonstrable ownership of the configuration of a product, not a part of one.

• Craftsmanship in 3D CAD (CATIA, NX, Creo, SolidWorks or comparable), including large assemblies and drawing release.

• Experience taking a design from concept through detailed design into manufacturing and assembly.

• Fluent English.

• Comfortable in a multidisciplinary, transatlantic team.

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS

• Space sector experience: launch loads, thermal distortion, cleanliness, outgassing and materials for vacuum.

• Defence sector experience.

• Optical instruments and opto-mechatronics, and the alignment stability they need.

• GD&T and tolerance analysis on precision structures.

• Experience with harness routing and accommodation.

• Experience working with an external manufacturing partner.

• ECSS mechanical standards.

• Fluent Dutch.

• Ownership of how an entire satellite is arranged and built, in a team small enough that
your decisions are visible in the hardware.
• Competitive, market-aligned salary and benefits, real ownership of your discipline, and
room to grow as the organisation scales.
• On-site work in Delft, limited hybrid working possible.

Particularities
This role requires Dutch security screening. You will need a VOG (Certificate of Conduct)
to start, which is quick to obtain and lets you begin work on the project immediately.
You might also need a VGB-B clearance. This takes longer, and we support you through it.
It is required for some aspects of the role, so you must be eligible for it and willing to
undergo the screening, but you do not need to have it in hand to join us.

Apply via this registration form on our website or use this link

In your application, include a short description of one requirements decomposition or architecture trade you owned, covering:

• The requirement or trade in question.

• The alternatives you evaluated.

• The criteria you used.

• The decision you made.

• What you got wrong.

Applications without this description will not be reviewed.