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They're up there! Today countless satellites orbit the earth, and many of them are designed, manufactured and launched by Space Systems/Loral (SS/L). The company's satellites are used in direct-to-home television, digital audio radio, broadband Internet, and digital multimedia broadcasting.
Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, SS/L employs a broad range of techies including mechanical, thermal, communication and payload engineers. They work through the design and construction of satellites in a cycle time as short as two or three years. With business booming, SS/L is eager to bring in more engineers.
Dawn Harms, VP for marketing and sales, notes that "Last year we grew our workforce by 730 people. We've already hired 200 this year and there are 100 to 200 more openings."
The company is focusing its hiring now, specifically seeking engineers specializing in antennas, systems, signal processing and software. Many of the company's technologies have military applications. SS/L does employ folks without security clearance, but they should be able to qualify for clearance if needed.
Systems engineers, Harms notes, can work in the actual production of satellites, or they can get into the advanced systems group which supports the marketing folks in selling satellites.
Selling satellites is a highly technical job. "The satellites have to be designed and engineered before we can even begin any kind of negotiation," Harms explains. So even the sales team needs a solid technical background.
"Twenty-three percent of our employees have advanced degrees," Harms says. "Actually there are 453 advanced degrees in the company, but some of our people have more than one."
SS/L looks for mid-career engineers with experience in RF and space. But it also hires new grads. In fact, seventeen years ago the company implemented its Future Stars program to encourage minorities at local high schools to consider technical degrees.
"Future Stars brings in disadvantaged youth to do summer internships and get a lot of mentoring. Many of them go on to college and say their experience at SS/L really influenced them," says Harms. Last year nineteen students from the Future Stars program worked at the company for the summer, along with another nineteen college-level interns.
SS/L doesn't have a formal diversity hiring program, but does track placement and career progress. There are people of color and women in leadership positions throughout the company, Harms says, including a chief engineer and a leader of the antenna engineering groups.
Harms herself is an RF engineer, a woman in a field where women are in the minority. When she completed her degree in EE and RF design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison her graduating class was just three percent women, she says.
She took a job in Silicon Valley designing traveling-wave tubes, and rose to manage her company's commercial group. SS/L, which was Ford Aerospace then, recruited her to work as a liaison between suppliers and systems engineers. The job took her all over the world, even working in Japan and Southeast Asia. In 1996 she moved to a sales position for the Americas region and settled back in the States.
"I've been in sales and marketing since then and it's been an exciting career path," Harms says. "The business side is always interesting, and translating customer requirements into satellite design is exciting."
Harms explains that while business is growing now and hiring is active, that wasn't always the case. Because of an industry slowdown and corporate-level investment issues, SS/L filed for bankruptcy a few years ago. But its well-designed products and strong customer base saw it through. Now, "The industry is back on its feet and we're stronger than ever," Harms declares.
"Our customers took the leap of faith and ordered satellites even though we were in bankruptcy, and that was actually a banner year," says Harms. "We had a sufficient backlog to take us through, and we captured new orders from DirecTV, Dish Network and other clients. Last year we had a record year with seven new contracts and this year we've already gotten several more, so it's been great."
SS/L has a lot to offer employees, Harms says. As a company it takes pride in its family-oriented practices.
"There's a lot of built-in flexibility," she explains. "We have flextime, telecommuting, domestic partner benefits and other things to help the family. I've taken time off to be with our family, and my husband, who works here too, has also taken time off."
Management, she says, was very supportive. "They understand that people's lives are complex and family is important."
D/C
www.ssloral.com
| Headquarters: |
Palo Alto, CA |
| Employees: |
About 2,000 |
| Business: |
Design and construction of satellites and spacecraft systems for commercial and government customers around the world |
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