Andurilindustries
Staff Thermal Engineer, Hypersonic Air Vehicles
Costa Mesa, California, United States. Posted 4 months ago
The role
The Staff Thermal Engineer will perform thermal design and analysis of unmanned air vehicles. This role involves defining thermal system architectures, conducting CFD and FEA analysis, and managing ground and flight testing.
What you will do
- Thermal design and analysis of unmanned air vehicles
- Define thermal system architectures and material selection strategies
- Thermal analysis of flight vehicles using CFD, FEA, and engineering methods
- Material response modeling under combined thermal and mechanical loads
- Transient thermal analysis for time-varying mission profiles
- Ground test planning, execution, and analysis
- Flight test planning, execution, and post-flight thermal data analysis
- Use first principles and MATLAB/Python models to inform design decisions
- Collaborate with aerodynamics, structures, electrical, and systems engineers
- Present thermal status at formal reviews
Required qualifications
- MS or higher degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Applied Physics with focus on heat transfer and fluid dynamics
- In-depth understanding of heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and high-temperature environments
- 15+ years of experience in aerospace thermal engineering on rocket, aircraft, or missile programs
- Experience with thermal analysis in high-speed flight regimes
- Thermal analysis experience using CFD (STAR-CCM+, ANSYS Fluent) and/or FEA thermal solvers
- Experience with thermal-structural coupling
- Ground testing experience with thermal instrumentation and data acquisition
- Strong programming skills in MATLAB, Python, or similar for tool development
- Experience preparing formal documentation
- CAD experience with SolidWorks or Siemens NX
- Passion for defending the United States and her allies
- Ability to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance
Nice to have
- Experience with material response modeling in extreme thermal environments
- Knowledge of material degradation and surface phenomena under demanding conditions
- Experience with specialized thermal ground test facilities
- Experience with chemical kinetics and finite-rate chemistry modeling
- Flight test experience including instrumentation design and post-flight analysis
- Experience with thermal-structural analysis codes (NASTRAN, Abaqus, ANSYS Mechanical)
- Material characterization experience at elevated temperatures
- Experience with manufacturing and assembly of thermal systems
- Active U.S. security clearance
Benefits
- Comprehensive, competitive benefits package available at little to no cost to employees
Before you apply
- Ability to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance
- Consent to pre-employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening
About the company
Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. Their family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system.