Job Description
Sr. Harness Engineer
Department: Vehicle Engineering
Employment Type: Full Time
Location: Hawthorne, California
Reporting To: Alastair Valentine
Compensation: $169,000 - $187,000 / year
Venturi Astrolab, Inc. (Astrolab) is pioneering new ways to explore and operate on distant planetary bodies. We are singularly focused on designing, building, and operating a fleet of multi-purpose commercial planetary rovers to extend and enhance humanity’s presence in the solar system. We are seeking motivated, creative, and exceptional people to join our world-class team.
As a Harness Design Engineer, you'll own the design and execution of flight, GSE, and test harnesses that connect avionics, sensors, power systems, and vehicle subsystems—ensuring reliability in extreme environments.
This is an end-to-end role spanning requirements definition, architecture, detailed design, first-article builds, qualification testing, and production support. You will work closely with mechanical, thermal, electrical, integration, and manufacturing teams to deliver harness systems that are safe, lightweight, manufacturable, and flight-ready.
We are looking for a hands-on, highly collaborative engineer who thrives in fast-paced environments and is excited to build real flight hardware. You’ll be a key technical owner on the vehicle program with high visibility and the ability to shape best practices as the organization scales.
What you'll do:
- Coordinate with Avionics Engineers to define and manage system level harness schematics for flight hardware, test, and GSE assets.
- Identify and maintain a library aerospace-grade materials, including connectors, backshells, shielding, wires, and cables for signal, power, data, and RF.
- Use 3D CAD tools to design routed harness models, ensuring proper physical architecture based on aerospace standards for bend radii, strain relief, retention, isolation, and separation, within complex vehicle assemblies.
- Create 2D flat harness drawings and formboards for production. Support first-article builds and resolve manufacturing non-conformances.
- Perform essential analyses such as voltage drop, current derating, and EMI/EMC shielding effectiveness and resolve designs to defined standards. Coordinate qualification tests like continuity, isolation, and vibration/thermal cycling.
What you'll bring:
- Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related technical field
- 5+ years of professional experience in wire harness design (aerospace, vehicles, robotics, defense, or similarly rigorous environments)
- Proficiency with CAD tools and PLM systems; comfortable releasing production drawings
- Ability to interpret and create complex wiring diagrams, schematics, and interface documentation
- Strong understanding of harness design and manufacturing methods (buildability, inspection, testability, and rework considerations)
- Experience with aerospace-grade materials/component selection and design for weight, cost, and manufacturability
- Hands-on experience troubleshooting harness issues to root cause, with a corrective-action mindset
- Familiarity with one or more relevant standards, such as: IPC/WHMA-A-620, NASA-STD-8739.4 / 8739.6, NASA-STD-6016, SAE AS22759, J-STD-001
- Strong communication skills and ability to manage interfaces across multiple engineering teams
- Self-directed and comfortable solving open-ended problems with speed and rigor
Additional Preferred Skills
- Prior experience in aerospace or launch vehicle applications
- Knowledge of redundancy strategies for flight-critical systems
- Experience designing for high vibration, vacuum, thermal cycling, and harsh EMI environments
- Background in harness-level or system-level signal integrity analysis for high-speed data interfaces (Ethernet, SpaceWire, LVDS)
- Proficiency with Siemens NX and Teamcenter
- Experience with harness-specific design tools such as E3 Zuken
Benefits and Perks
- Join a team of best-in-class engineers building the foundation of planetary surface exploration
- Equity ownership in the company
- Comprehensive health benefits, including medical, dental, vision, and mental health support
- 401(k) plan with company match
- Flexible PTO and parental leave
- Home office set up reimbursement
- Weekly lunch stipend, plus complimentary snacks and beverages on-site
- Once a month social hour on-site with food and drinks
