Jobs

This position provides strong administrative support for the McDonald Observatory West Texas operations and works collaboratively with West Texas staff and the McDonald Observatory Austin Business Office.

This position is part of the McDonald Observatory’s instrumentation group and exercises broad independent judgment to design, analyze, build, test, and support optomechanical and electromechanical subsystems for the McDonald Observatory’s instrument and telescope development projects. This position reports to the Chief Astronomer.

This position provides supervision and technical support for facilities maintenance, utilities, and custodial functions at McDonald Observatory. Develops, plans, and coordinates maintenance and custodial work for the entire facility (including research buildings, housing, roads, the Visitor Center, the Astronomers Lodge, and utility infrastructure). Supports the Physical Plant Manager by overseeing daily departmental operations.

Performs work on water systems and provides advanced maintenance and repair tasks across one or more craft areas at McDonald Observatory, a large remote research facility. Works independently and supports journey-level craft workers. Routinely conducts preventive maintenance.

Performs highly skilled and technical supervisory work fabricating precision parts from drawings and solid models by programming, setting up, and operating CNC vertical milling machine, CNC lathe, and CNC wire EDM. Use manual machine tools and all other machine shop-related equipment as necessary.

Assists the McDonald Observatory’s engineering group with tasks related to the design and fabrication of instruments, and assists the Astronomy Department with instructional telescopes, classrooms, and other tasks. Supervises the machine shop, coordinating and developing schedules and workflow to ensure appropriate progress on mechanical engineering projects.