Test Engineer at Cowboy Space Corp. in Washington, DC

Job description

About Cowboy Space Corp: Mission Cowboy Space Corporation is solving the global energy crisis by building the infrastructure for abundant, resilient space-based solar energy. We are tackling one of humanity’s most complex engineering challenges with a world-class team dedicated to delivering a revolutionary power platform. Cowboy Space Corporation is transforming how civilization powers, computes and connects - from orbit to Earth. Background Cowboy Space Corporation is building the infrastructure to power and connect the orbital economy. Our modular, scalable satellites collect sunlight in Low Earth Orbit to enable multiple integrated applications: transmitting energy via infrared lasers (space-to-earth and space-to-space), powering on-orbit high-performance computing clusters (GPU/TPU), and providing secure, high bandwidth optical data transport. Current energy and data systems rely on complex logistics and outdated infrastructure. Cowboy Space Corporation overcomes these challenges by enabling direct, on-demand, secure, and scalable energy distribution and data processing from space. This will revolutionize how we operate in orbit and on Earth, supporting the rapidly expanding space industrial base, ISAM (In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing) operations, remote regions, and military bases. Baiju Bhatt founded Cowboy Space Corporation in 2024. Inspired by his father’s work with NASA Langley Research Center, Baiju earned his B.S. in Physics and M.S. in Mathematics at Stanford before co-founding Robinhood, now a public company that has helped over 20 million Americans access the financial system. Cowboy Space Corporation has raised ~$365 million from Index Ventures, Interlagos, Construct Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and others. This is an ambitious mission that demands extraordinary talent. Cowboy Space Corporation ’s team has worked at places like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke Space, Astranis and NASA, and is based in San Carlos, CA. If you're ready to solve complex technical challenges and help build the most important energy company in the world, we want to hear from you. The Role How fast we can test will set how fast this program moves. You are being hired to make that cycle short: build the stands, then run them. Fluids, mechanical, instrumentation, and controls, from blank sheet through commissioning into routine operation. Hardware and software, mechanical and electrical, testing components, engines, and full stages. When something misbehaves at two in the morning, you figure out whether it's the article, the stand, or the sensor. What You'll Do • Design and build fluid, mechanical, instrumentation, and control systems for component, engine, and stage-level test • Write test procOwn P&IDs and take fluid system designs from schematic through procurement, fabrication, and checkout • Operate, maintain, and troubleshoot those systems once live, including the electrical and software side • Safely operate high-pressure and cryogenic systems: LOX, LNG, high-pressure gas • Develop procedures people can follow under pressure, then run them as test conductor • Perform hazard analysis and set the safety controls, exclusion zones, and abort criteria for your setups • Instrument tests so they answer the question: sensor selection, calibration, DAQ, and sample rates that survive the actual event • Reduce and present test data, and drive anomalies to root cause rather than a retest • Own your stand project schedules, especially the long-lead items nobody else is watching What We're Looking For • 4-8 years of relevant test experience: propulsion, fluids, energetics, or industrial systems where a mistake had physical consequences • First-principles depth in fluids, thermo, and structures, enough to reason about a system on a whiteboard before opening a tool • Experience creating P&IDs and building the system they describe • Experience integrating and troubleshooting mechanical and electronic