--- title: 'Lead Designer at Starpath Robotics' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/lead-designer-starpath-robotics-hawthorne-axk08ca5qr0j' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-08' --- # Lead Designer at Starpath Robotics - **Company:** Starpath Robotics - **Location:** Hawthorne, CA - **Compensation:** $100k–$160k - **Employment:** full-time - **Posted:** 2026-07-29 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/starpath.space/69322251-6725-4edc-b738-d11dd206d33a ## Job description Lead Designer Position Details Location: Los Angeles (Hawthorne), CA Employment Type: Full-time Department: Design / Starlight Solar Travel: Occasional ## About Starpath Starpath develops and manufactures the technologies that will enable humans to live on the Moon and Mars. Today, we are building robotic systems that locally produce the essential commodities a lunar civilization will require at extreme scale: water, power, and oxygen. Our ultimate goal is to build and operate a self-sustaining city on Mars. ## The Role Starpath is building a growing portfolio of hardware — space solar arrays, lunar surface robotics, factory equipment, and the systems that will one day operate on the Moon and Mars. As our Lead Designer, you will own how our hardware looks, feels, and reads as a coherent family of products. Your work will define Starpath's design language, and set the aesthetic and formal standards that carry across every product we build. This is a hands-on senior IC role. You'll live in CAD, generate concepts, iterate fast, and partner deeply with engineering to translate design intent into buildable hardware. The right person combines strong industrial design instincts with the engineering fluency to work directly with mechanical, structures, and manufacturing teams without translation loss. ## Responsibilities - Develop and steward Starpath's industrial design language across all products — form, surfacing, proportions, materiality, and detail - Generate concept designs in CAD for new products and product refreshes, from early ideation through refined design intent - Partner with mechanical, structures, and manufacturing engineering to translate design concepts into buildable hardware while preserving design intent - Establish and evolve design standards, guidelines, and libraries that support consistency as the product portfolio grows - Lead design reviews and act as the design voice in cross-functional product decisions - Produce renderings, visualizations, and design deliverables that communicate design vision internally and externally (investor materials, customer presentations, marketing) - Own the visual and formal cohesion of Starpath's hardware — ensuring products from different teams read as part of the same family - Push back on unnecessary complexity — simplify forms, reduce visual noise, and cut detail wherever it doesn't add value Required Qualifications - Bachelor's or Master's degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, or a related discipline - 6+ years of industrial design experience with a portfolio demonstrating hardware product design, ideally in aerospace, robotics, consumer electronics, automotive, or comparable domains - Strong CAD proficiency (SolidWorks, Alias, Rhino, or similar) with the ability to model and iterate concepts directly - Demonstrated ability to define and maintain design language across a family of hardware products - Portfolio required for consideration ## Preferred Qualifications - Experience at a hardware company with a strong design reputation (Apple, Tesla, Rivian, Anduril, Nike, Frog Design, IDEO, or comparable) - Background bridging industrial design and mechanical engineering — comfort with GD&T, DFM, and engineering-driven design constraints - Proficiency with visualization and rendering tools (KeyShot, Blender, Cinema 4D, or similar) - Experience designing hardware for extreme environments, high-reliability applications, or complex mechanical systems - Sketching skills for early ideation and communication - Experience partnering with brand and marketing teams on visual identity and product photography - Prior experience as the sole designer or first design hire at a growing hardware company ## Compensation & Benefits - Location: Los Angeles (Hawthorne), CA - Competitive salary plus equity package; compensation scales with candidate experience - PTO & health/dental/vision coverage included ## EAR REQUIREMENTS: - To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. ## Equal Opportunity Starpath is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. ## About Starpath Robotics ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Starpath Robotics designs and manufactures robotic propellant production factories for the Moon and Mars, aiming to reduce the cost of deep-space transport and enable a self-sustaining human city on Mars. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage) - **Headquarters**: Hawthorne, California, United States - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Saurav Shroff (CEO & Co-Founder), Mihir Gondhalekar (Co-Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Space Research and Technology, Air Transportation, Space Travel, Robotics - **Target customers**: B2B – space agencies (NASA), commercial space companies (e.g., Starship operators), satellite operators, and future Mars/Moon infrastructure developers. - **Mission or purpose statement**: “Building a self-sustaining city on Mars” by producing propellant and infrastructure in space. ## Products & Services - **Rover (R10)**: Autonomous lunar ice prospecting rover that excavates and delivers hundreds of kilograms of icy regolith. Built for NASA testing and future lunar operations. - **Refinery System**: Full-stack hardware system for producing and distributing propellant (oxygen, hydrogen, methane) from water ice on the Moon and Mars. - **Starlight Solar**: Space-rated solar panels that are 90% cheaper than traditional alternatives, with lead times of weeks instead of months. Available for purchase now. - **Starlight Air**: The world’s lightest space solar panel (announced March 2026). Engineered for high-efficiency power generation. - **Shadow Voyager**: Exploration vehicle designed for permanently shadowed regions at the Lunar South Pole. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total Funding – $12.0M (Seed round closed August 20, 2024) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: - Fusion Fund (lead investor in Seed round per LinkedIn) - 8VC and 10 other investors (per Crunchbase) - Contrary, Valhalla Ventures - NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (testing partnership) - Atomic-6 (development contract for deployable lunar boom) - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount grew 73.7% year-over-year to 28 employees (LinkedIn, 2026) - Successful thermal vacuum chamber testing at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (2025) - Launch of Starlight Air solar panels (2026) - Active hiring for technical roles including first Technical Recruiter ## Competitive Advantages - **Ex-SpaceX founding team**: Deep expertise in space hardware and propulsion. - **Full-stack approach**: Covers rover mining, propellant refinery, and solar power – a vertically integrated solution for in-situ resource utilization. - **NASA collaboration**: Early access to NASA’s test facilities (e.g., 20-ft thermal vacuum chamber) and credibility. - **Cost disruption**: Starlight solar panels claim 90% cost reduction vs. traditional space solar. - **First-mover on lunar ice**: Autonomous rover designed to establish the first American claim to lunar ice resources. ## Strategic Focus - **Lunar testbed**: Use the Moon as a proving ground for Mars propellant production technology, leveraging lunar water ice. - **City-scale infrastructure**: Scale from propellant production to energy grids, mining capacity, and life support for a self-sustaining Mars city. - **Revenue diversification**: Selling Starlight solar panels and rover services to generate near-term revenue while pursuing long-term Mars goals. - **Talent scaling**: Aggressively hiring to grow the engineering team (technical roles are 48% of workforce). ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Startup environment with a bold mission (“build a city on Mars”). High ownership and fast iteration – interns are expected to do “whatever needs doing.” - **Growth**: Company growing rapidly (+73.7% YoY headcount); opportunities for early employees to take on significant responsibility. - **Technical depth**: Team includes alumni from SpaceX, Boston Dynamics, Anduril, Astrobotic – strong engineering culture. - **Work location**: Hawthorne, CA (HQ) with additional office in Burlingame, CA. Onsite presence expected (manufacturing and testing require hands-on work). - **Notable perks**: Not explicitly listed, but startup equity and the chance to work on hardware that goes to the Moon and Mars. - **Recent hiring signals**: Actively recruiting Technical Recruiter, software engineers, and rover engineers – indicating scaling phase. ## Sources 1. [starpath.space](https://www.starpath.space/) 2. [starpath.space/about](https://starpath.space/about/) 3. [crunchbase.com](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/starpath-robotics) 4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/starpathspace) ## Other roles at Starpath Robotics - [Intern/Associate Engineer - All Roles](https://feeny.ai/job/intern-associate-engineer-all-roles-starpath-robotics-hawthorne-x72ernec0zvg) — Hawthorne, CA - [Chemical / Materials Engineer – Space Solar](https://feeny.ai/job/chemical-materials-engineer-space-solar-starpath-robotics-hawthorne-pjhey2tmt22v) — Hawthorne, CA - [CNC Machinist Setup & Operation – MILL](https://feeny.ai/job/cnc-machinist-setup-operation-mill-starpath-robotics-future-factory-z0f3k4xnmat8) — Future Factory - [CNC Machinist Setup & Operation – LATHE](https://feeny.ai/job/cnc-machinist-setup-operation-lathe-starpath-robotics-future-factory-fej8ssxcxj3d) — Future Factory - [Senior CNC Programmer & Prototype Machinist – MILL](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-cnc-programmer-prototype-machinist-mill-starpath-robotics-future-factory-0f5924ch61c5) — Future Factory - [Senior CNC Programmer & Prototype Machinist – LATHE](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-cnc-programmer-prototype-machinist-lathe-starpath-robotics-hawthorne-thk919345d3r) — Hawthorne, CA - [Senior Flight Software Engineer - Embedded Linux](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-flight-software-engineer-embedded-linux-starpath-robotics-hawthorne-6s0rba5b8hd2) — Hawthorne, CA - [Senior Robotics Software Engineer – Lunar Rover Localization](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-robotics-software-engineer-lunar-rover-localization-starpath-robotics-sgmwr7nk47dk) — Hawthorne, CA - [Electrical Engineer - Space Solar](https://feeny.ai/job/electrical-engineer-space-solar-starpath-robotics-hawthorne-t4cv2by8p1mk) — Hawthorne, CA - [Senior Manufacturing Engineer - Space Solar](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-manufacturing-engineer-space-solar-starpath-robotics-hawthorne-sj1bj4s7wn0s) — Hawthorne, CA