# Ordnance Engineer at Cowboy Space

- Company: Cowboy Space
- What the company does: Backed by a16z, Index and NEA.
- Company website: https://www.cowboyspace.com/
- Type: Startups
- Level: Mid level
- Location: Kent, Washington
- Work setup: On-site
- Pay: $140K to $200K base salary per year (USD)
- Posted: 2026-09-14
- Apply by: 2026-10-29
- Apply: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/cowboyspace/f9f02ff3-e240-4050-9745-7d59e7f9e741
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/cowboy-space-ordnance-engineer/

## About the role

You own every energetic device on the vehicle. Pyro-valves and pyro-actuated mechanisms, and the initiators, safe-and-arm devices, and detonating trains that fire all of them. You also own the physical reality of energetics on the ground: how we buy them, store them, ship them, handle them, and who is allowed to touch them.

## What they're looking for

- Bachelor's degree in mechanical, aerospace, chemical, or electrical engineering, or similar
- 5-10 years of experience in ordnance, pyrotechnics, or energetic systems on launch vehicles, missiles, or spacecraft
- Hands-on experience taking an ordnance device or an initiation train through qualification
- Working command of MIL-STD-1576 and the explosives safety regime around it: hazard classification, quantity-distance, and the DoD and ATF rules that govern energetics on the ground
- Electrical fluency sufficient to argue about the firing chain: bridgewire and exploding-foil devices, no-fire and all-fire current, firing margin, ESD and RF susceptibility, and the analysis showing inadvertent initiation cannot happen
- Real knowledge of energetic materials: what the common formulations do, how they age, what they are compatible with, and what temperature and vacuum do to them

Tags: Launch & Propulsion Engineering