Lead Mechanisms Engineer
Albedo
Denver, CO, USA
Posted on Nov 15, 2025
Be one of the Bedo 100
Albedo is making Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) mainstream, building the infrastructure to usher every satellite mission set into this new orbital domain. We build buses, integrated satellites, and turnkey missions for customers to thrive in VLEO, between 200 km - 400 km, where proximity compounds performance & drag self-cleans debris.
As part of the first 100 employees at Albedo, you will have a big impact on Albedo’s trajectory to proliferating VLEO — whether you’re advancing hardware to increase satellite longevity, scaling production for large constellations, building next-gen flight and ground software to push performance, or enabling missions that matter for national security and our day-to-day life here on earth.
How We Operate: Albedo takes a first-principles approach — in space and in business. We move with speed, take calculated risks, and learn quickly. We use AI regularly to create leverage in every discipline across the company. We work in-person at our Broomfield CO HQ to maximize team & company productivity. We work hard & with urgency to compound our first-mover advantage.
Who We're Looking For: Builders who want to own outcomes, not tasks. Systems thinkers who balance precision with iteration while thinking about the big picture. Individuals who are energized by creating a category rather than competing in an existing one. You’ll join a team that has already proven what others said wasn’t feasible and is now scaling & upgrading our VLEO buses & payloads to serve mission sets across sensing, communications, and responsive operations.
If you can feel the excitement running through your veins, apply to be one of the Bedo 100.
Compensation and Benefits:
- Employee friendly equity compensation
- 4% direct matching 401k
- Health Insurance: 100% employee coverage & 75% dependent coverage
- Parental leave and childcare coverage
- Flexible vacation and sick time from day one
- 12 company holidays
- $100 monthly wellness benefit
- Relocation package if not based in Denver
What You'll Do:
- Own architecture, design, and development of reaction wheels and CMGs optimized for VLEO: extremely low jitter, high torque, and long life
- Lead multi-disciplinary projects to deliver precision low-jitter mechanism that meet image motion, pointing, and agility performance requirements from a first principals approach
- Translate or help derive jitter, agility, and bandwidth requirements into mechanism design constraints and testable specs
- Own the schedule, budget, and performance parameters of all new mechanism development to deliver on project and program capabilities
- Evaluate and implement design for manufacturing (DFM) strategies for high rate production with respect to mechanism balancing, characterization, and lifetime test strategies
- Collaborate deeply with GNC and Structural Engineers to ensure closed-loop control performance and system model correlation is enabled, not limited, by the hardware
- Lead qualification efforts for all mechanisms operating in VLEO, including test planning for atomic oxygen, high drag, and microvibration
- Drive future development of:
- Fast steering mirrors for agile optical pointing
- Articulating assemblies for adaptive communications or SDA payloads
- Focus and alignment mechanisms for optical payloads
Your Ideal Skills and Experience:
- 10+ years in aerospace, robotics, or optical systems with a focus on precision mechanism design
- Demonstrated experience developing:
- Reaction wheels, CMGs, or momentum management systems
- High-stability actuation for optical payloads (focus, alignment, fine steering)
- Mechanisms with tight jitter and pointing stability requirements
- Strong system-level intuition — you know how mechanism performance shapes GNC, image quality, and spacecraft agility
- Expertise in:
- Rotor balancing and bearing dynamics
- Motor control and torque ripple minimization
- Structural dynamics and modal analysis for mechanism-induced jitter
- Materials and lubrication for vacuum and long-life operation
- Experience designing and validating mechanisms for:
- Sub-micron level optical alignment
- Thermal stability and athermal design
- Fluent in first-principles tradeoffs between performance, simplicity, manufacturability, and testability
- History of leading multidisciplinary hardware teams
- Curiosity and eagerness to learn, with the drive to take ownership of problems and deliver results in a fast-moving environment.
- Regularly uses AI tools as essential leverage to accelerate work, improve clarity, and multiply output
Albedo does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to Albedo employees. Albedo is not responsible for any fees or overhead related to unsolicited resumes.
Additional Requirements: In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire. All persons hired will be required to be a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.
Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled: Albedo is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Relocation: Relocation for this position is available
US CITIZENSHIP IS REQUIRED
#LI-Onsite
Salary range aligns with the company's compensation structure, which compensates at market rates of 50th percentile salary and 75th percentile equity. The company uses market data provided by Pave to determine percentiles. The final compensation package is subject to change if the candidate's experience and company need drive a different job level than originally slated for the position.