Electromechanical Packaging Engineer III - Electro-Optical Components

Application close date:

Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the requisition is closed.

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

This role is part of Blue National Security (BNS), where our focus is the design, development, and delivery of launch and spacecraft systems for national security missions. Through Blue Ring, our all-in-one, high-powered hybrid solar-electric and chemical-propelled spacecraft, we provide unmatched mission maneuverability, versatility, and capacity at dramatically lower-profile costs.

Build the Hardware That Survives Space

Space is unforgiving: extreme temperatures, violent vibration and shock, radiation, and vacuum. The electronics and photonics flying on Blue Origin spacecraft have to survive all of it. We need an experienced packaging engineer to own ruggedized enclosures, electro-optical assemblies, and fiber-optic integration from concept through flight release.

This role supports classified programs. Candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance. An existing clearance is preferred but not required; we're glad to sponsor the right candidate.

The Mission

Blue Origin is building the infrastructure for humanity's future in space. Optical communications is becoming a core capability for high-rate space networking, and the hardware that makes it work has to hold tight thermal stability and precise optical interfaces while surviving launch and years on orbit. That's fundamentally a mechanical and thermal problem, and it's the one this team solves.

You'll own the mechanical design of the electro-optical units at the center of that system: modem processing and photonics units, electro-optic assemblies, transceiver hardware, and optical amplifier assemblies, plus the chassis and stacked-unit architectures that house them. The thermal paths that keep lasers, modulators, and receivers stable enough to close a link are yours, along with the fiber optic tray and every fiber run, splice, and junction inside the box, and the interfaces that let your units mount to the optical payload and host spacecraft. You'll work closely with electrical engineers and PCB designers throughout, because on hardware this dense, mechanical, thermal, and electrical design converge or fail together.

As the senior technical voice for electro-optical packaging on a team with deep spacecraft avionics, structures, and thermal heritage, you'll set the design standards, analysis methods, and process baselines the team builds on.

What You'll Do

· Own complex packaging assemblies including enclosures, chassis, card-cage and stacked-unit architectures, mounting systems, and fiber junction housings, across the full lifecycle from requirements through production support.

· Lead the mechanical and thermal design of modem processing and photonics units, integrating high-speed digital boards, photonics boards, electro-optic daughter cards, and power conversion slices into flight-qualifiable, mass- and volume-efficient packages. Package optical amplifier and transceiver-class hardware, addressing high optical power handling, fiber end-face reliability, hermeticity, and moisture control.

· Own the mechanical thermal design with thermal engineering: heat rejection paths, mounting materials, heater placement, thermal isolation, and thermal control of tunable lasers, modulators, and TEC-cooled devices, where drift drives calibration burden and link margin.

· Own fiber optic tray design and all internal fiber management: layout, routing, bend-radius control, strain relief, splice retention, and connector selection. Define the splicing and workmanship processes and specify the equipment to execute them. Define mechanical and installation requirements for electrical harnesses and carry them through detailed design with harness designers.

· Collaborate with electrical engineers and PCB designers from architecture through layout, fabrication, and test. In ECAD/MCAD co-design, converge board outline, component floor planning, heat-source placement, and connector location, and weigh in on component and BOM decisions where mechanical and thermal factors matter, including junction-temperature margin and derating trades. Define board-level protection and workmanship: staking, conformal coating, bonding, and component restraint for vibration and shock.

· Drive thermal, structural, vibration, shock, and fatigue analyses. Own tolerance stack-ups and thermo-elastic stability budgets that protect optical interfaces and coupling efficiency across environments. Lead trade studies balancing mass, thermal and structural performance, EMI/EMC, manufacturability, cost, schedule, and risk.

· Own the mechanical, thermal, environmental, EMC, mass, and envelope requirement set. Decompose host requirements into verifiable requirements, maintain traceability, and report mass properties against host allocations. Negotiate host vehicle accommodation, including mounting interfaces, mass and CG envelopes, thermal limits, and dynamic environment levels. When hardware qualified to one standard meets a different host spec, quantify the gap and drive it closed.

· Deliver models, drawings, specifications, and release packages, including mechanical and thermal ICDs. Apply GD&T per ASME Y14.5. Address space-optics risks such as contamination control, outgassing, hermeticity, and radiation-induced fiber attenuation, and support radiation and reliability teams on part selection and long-lead procurement.

· Design for production. Apply DFM/DFA, specify fiber and optical assembly processes, and partner with fabrication and assembly suppliers on producibility. Own test and integration support, including fixtures and optical loopback setups, and shape environmental test campaigns from planning through anomaly closeout.

· Mentor engineers, lead design reviews, and build team capability in electro-optical packaging. Perform all work in accordance with applicable security requirements, protecting classified information and controlled technical data.

What You Bring

· B.S. in Mechanical, Aerospace, Optical, or Photonics Engineering, or a related discipline, plus 3 to 5+ years designing electromechanical or electro-optical assemblies, electronics or photonics packaging, or comparable high-reliability hardware, with a track record of owning designs from requirements through production.

· Hands-on experience packaging electro-optical hardware (coherent or high-speed optical modems, transceivers, optical amplifier assemblies, photonic devices, lasers or detectors, or fiber-optic assemblies), including the thermal, optical-interface, and contamination challenges that come with it.

· Demonstrated experience designing fiber management inside a constrained enclosure: tray layout, routing, bend-radius and strain-relief strategy, splice retention, and connector selection, plus thermal management of temperature-sensitive photonics, including TEC integration and thermal isolation.

· Experience integrating PCBAs, connectors, and cable or fiber interfaces into mechanical assemblies, with a history of close collaboration with electrical engineers and PCB designers on dense, high-reliability boards, participating in layout reviews and influencing component selection before layout locks. Experience specifying mechanical and installation requirements for electrical harnesses.

· Knowledge of ruggedized electronics and photonics design: thermal management, structural protection, vibration and shock survival, vacuum compatibility, and EMI/EMC shielding, plus experience conducting or directing the supporting analyses.

· Ability to define and hold mechanical and thermal i