Staff Materials Engineer, Design Allowables & Materials Data
$166,000–$220,000 year
On-siteCosta Mesa, California, United States
Job Summary
Define the Design Allowables Standard by establishing statistical basis, acceptance criteria, and controlled release protocols for test data across all business lines. Architect and stand up a materials data pipeline that ingests, structures, and governs characterization results into an enterprise database to enable reuse. Transform materials testing into a strategic workflow by defining rigor, scope, and the path from raw data to defensible design values. Implement standardized fatigue and fracture-critical methodologies to ensure high-consequence design decisions rest on a consistent, quantified foundation. Serve as the cross-business-line technical authority, partnering with design, analysis, and test teams to drive adoption of the new data infrastructure.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Materials Science, Materials Engineering, Metallurgy or a related field
- 8+ years of materials and process engineering experience in aerospace, defense, or a comparably rigorous domain
- Deep expertise in materials characterization and design allowables development, including statistical basis (e.g., MMPDS / CMH-17-style methods)
- Demonstrated experience turning test data into governed, analysis-ready datasets—data structure, statistics, and traceability (materials data management)
- Experience with material qualification and characterization: mechanical testing, and translating results into usable design values
- Proven ability to set a technical standard and drive adoption across teams
- Strong technical writing—your methodology and specifications are clear, unambiguous, and actionable
- Ability to manage multiple priorities and drive progress independently in a fast-paced environment
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance
Desired Qualifications
- Active U.S. Secret or Top Secret security clearance
- Hands-on experience with scoping and executing a characterization campaign from scratch
- Background in fatigue and fracture mechanics, especially for fracture-critical or damage-tolerant components
- Experience with materials data management / materials informatics platforms and partnering with software/data teams to build data pipelines
- Direct experience with advanced or non-standard materials—high-temperature alloys, advanced composites, or additively-manufactured materials
- Experience integrating or standardizing materials data across disparate or legacy sources
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