Senior Aerospace Engineer - Aerothermal & Hypersonics
$120,000–$210,000 year
On-siteHuntington Beach, California, United States
Job Summary
Lead hypersonic vehicle shaping and aerothermal trades, predicting high-temperature flight environments and thermal protection system performance for next-generation autonomous defense platforms. Conduct engineering and high-fidelity aerothermal analysis to support vehicle, TPS, and structural design while partnering with materials, structures, and propulsion teams on multidisciplinary integration. Establish ground aerothermal and TPS test capability, execute flight-test planning, analyze data, and correlate predictions to test evidence. Build engineering models, run trade studies, and document recommendations for design reviews across the product lifecycle.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field
- 5–7+ years of professional aerospace engineering experience
- Demonstrated experience contributing to or leading a project from initial concept through implementation (design, analysis, test, and fielding or equivalent closure)
- Demonstrated experience in hypersonic aerodynamic design — vehicle shaping, aerodynamic performance optimization, and computational or experimental analysis for high-speed flight or atmospheric entry vehicles
- Strong working understanding of: Hypersonic flight and atmospheric entry environments
- Strong working understanding of: Aerodynamics for high-speed vehicles, with ability to support lower-speed aero alongside aero teammates
- Strong working understanding of: Aerothermal analysis and aerodynamic heating (including engineering heating methods and high-temperature gas dynamics)
- Strong working understanding of: TPS materials, architectures, and thermal performance evaluation (working fluency; deep heat-shield ownership is a plus)
- Experience with CFD, aerothermal, and aerodynamic analysis tools; familiarity with several of: STAR-CCM+, FUN3D, LociCHEM, US3D, CFD++, DATCOM, OpenVSP, MATLAB, and Python
- Experience working in fast-paced, multidisciplinary engineering environments
- Strong analytical, documentation, and communication skills; ability to mentor and provide technical leadership appropriate to a senior IC
- Must be a U.S. person (U.S. citizen or permanent resident / as defined for export-control compliance)
Desired Qualifications
- Hands-on experience designing and/or selecting Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) / heat shields for high-speed flight or atmospheric entry applications
- Depth in heat-shield design: material selection, stack-up/architecture trades, recession/insulation performance, and margin definition against mission heating
- Experience with both hypersonic atmospheric flight and atmospheric entry / re-entry aerothermal problems
- Experience standing up or maturing ground test capability for aerothermal or TPS validation (e.g. arcjet, plasma, or equivalent high-enthalpy / material test pathways) and/or flight-test aerothermal instrumentation and post-flight reconstruction
- Experience delivering aerothermal environments and TPS recommendations into structures and systems design reviews under schedule pressure
- Familiarity with defense or dual-use high-speed vehicle development and production-minded design constraints
- Advanced degree with thesis or professional focus in hypersonics, aerothermodynamics, or TPS
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