Sr. Propulsion Engineer - Thermo-Mechanical Analysis

We are looking for someone to apply their technical expertise , leadership skills, and commitment to quality to positively impact safe human spaceflight. Passion for our mission and vision is required !

- Develop, maintain , and own 2D axisymmetric thermo-mechanical whole-engine / whole-pump models of rotating equipment, predicting metal temperatures, component deflections, and clearances across the full operating envelope.

- Translate 3D component and assembly geometry into efficient 2D axisymmetric representations that capture the governing thermal and structural features.

- Implement transient operating profiles (startup, acceleration, steady-state, throttle transients, shutdown, and cooldown / soak-back) and assess their effect on differential growth and clearances.

- Work closely with secondary-flow analysts to develop conjugate thermal-fluid models, translating internal-flow network outputs (cavity pressures, temperatures, leakage flows, windage) into convective boundary conditions using rotating-disc, gaspath , and cavity heat-transfer correlations; calibrate against rig and engine test data.

- Apply thermal boundary conditions to axisymmetric structural models to predict rotor stack, casing stack separation margin, radial fit s , and critical radial / axial clearance closure across transients for critical flow area and rub margin assessment.

- Perform component structural margin, bolted-joint, and interference-fit assessments using 2D and 3D ANSYS, and feed results to life assessment (LCF / HCF / creep).

- Synthesize thermal and structural analysis results into actionable operability guidance, informing and negotiating system-level ConOps trades that balance s hardware reliability and life against mission performance objectives .

- Collaborate across disciplines - design, aero / CFD, secondary flow, rotordynamics , materials, and test - to anchor analysis assumptions and resolve complex hardware issues.

- Develop and maintain analysis-driven design requirements and documentation; contribute technical artifacts to subsystem and program gated reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR, MRR, TRR).

- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering , Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.

- Minimum of 8 years of experience in mechanical / structural / thermal analysis of rotating machinery or comparable high-performance hardware (or fewer years with demonstrated ownership of a whole-engine / 2D axisymmetric thermo-mechanical model).

- Hands-on experience with transient thermal and nonlinear structural finite element analysis in ANSYS (contact, plasticity, thermal-structural coupling).

- Demonstrated experience building (not just running) whole-engine / 2D axisymmetric thermo-mechanical models of rotating equipment.

- Ability to independently derive convective heat-transfer boundary conditions from engineering correlations (does not depend on a separate CFD team to populate a thermal model).

- Experience working in cross-disciplinary engineering teams.

- A track record of taking ownership, showing resilience in the face of challenges, and consistently delivering results.

- M.S. or Ph.D. in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering or a related discipline.

- Experience producing tip-clearance / pinch-point predictions that informed clearance budgets or active clearance control.

- Life assessment experience: thermo-mechanical fatigue (TMF), creep, low- cycle and high-cycle fatigue (LCF / HCF).

- Rotordynamics literacy (Campbell diagrams, critical speeds, bearing support stiffness) sufficient to close the radial clearance budget.

- Experience correlating and calibrating thermo-mechanical models against rig or engine test data.

- Component design experience (bladed rotors / blisks , discs, casings, seals, bolted joints).

- Working knowledge of ASME Y14.5 GD&T and tolerance / stack-up analysis.

- Experience with 1D fluid-network tools (e.g., Flownex ) and proprietary whole-engine-model toolchains.

- Background in gas turbines, steam turbines, APUs, turbochargers, or oil & gas dense-gas compressors / expanders.

- Demonstrated use of - or genuine enthusiasm to adopt - modern AI-assisted engineering tools (e.g., LLM-based coding/analysis assistants integrated into the daily development environment) to accelerate modeling, scripting, and documentation.