Aerospace Engineer - Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis, and Optimization
$120,000–$170,000 year
On-siteSan Diego, California, United States
Job Summary
Architect, develop, and maintain Firestorm's Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis, and Optimization (MDAO) framework, integrating discipline models for aerodynamics, propulsion, structures, and stability. Build parametric geometry pipelines to enable rapid exploration of unmanned aircraft configurations and implement optimization methods including gradient-based techniques and surrogate modeling. Validate tool outputs against wind tunnel and flight test data while executing vehicle-level trade studies to support new product development. Work cross-functionally with airframe, propulsion, and manufacturing teams to ensure the tool reflects real-world design constraints. Based in San Diego with up to 25% domestic travel for field operations and testing.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering or a related field with 3+ years of relevant experience, or a Master's degree with 1+ years
- Strong foundation in aircraft conceptual/preliminary design, aerodynamics, flight performance, and stability & control
- Proficiency in Python and experience developing engineering analysis software beyond one-off scripts
- Hands-on experience with an MDAO framework (e.g., OpenMDAO, ModelCenter, Dakota, SUAVE) or demonstrated experience building multidisciplinary analysis pipelines
- Experience with numerical optimization methods and design space exploration
- Ability to operate in fast-paced, iterative development environments
- U.S. Person status (Citizen or Permanent Resident) required due to ITAR regulations
Desired Qualifications
- Master's or PhD in Aerospace Engineering with a focus on MDAO, aircraft design, or applied optimization
- Experience with tools such as OpenVSP, AVL, XFOIL, SU2, Fluent, STAR-CCM+, or NASTRAN
- Experience with surrogate modeling, uncertainty quantification, or gradient-based optimization with analytic derivatives
- Prior experience designing small UAS, especially Group 2–3 unmanned aircraft
- Familiarity with design for additive manufacturing
- Experience with software engineering practices: Git, CI/CD, unit testing, and containerized or HPC compute environments
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