Lead Aerothermal Engineer

The role

Hop Aero is hiring an Aerothermal Engineer to own the aerothermal environment and heat-shield program at Hop Aero. This is a foundational technical role - this person will establish our internal capability from first-principles.

What you will own

You will be the responsible engineer for all aerothermal, hypersonic, thermal protection systems, and re-entry matters.

• Develop coupled trajectory, aerodynamic and thermal analyses with the GNC and systems teams.

• Lead heat-shield architecture and material trades.

• Translate thermal predictions into vehicle requirements, interfaces, mass budgets and instrumentation needs.

• Plan and execute coupon, subscale and flight-like thermal testing.

• Develop internal high-enthalpy test capability.

• Support vehicle configuration trades related to aerothermodynamics.

• Establish analytical correlation and model-update processes using ground-test and flight data.

• Own aerothermal and TPS risks through design reviews and flight-readiness reviews.

Requirements

• Demonstrated ability to execute in a similar role

• 5-10 years of relevant experience with hypersonic aerothermodynamics, atmospheric entry, high-temperature flows or other relevant thermal protection systems.

• Experience with aerodynamic heating, thermal analysis and relevant CFD or engineering analysis tools.

• Demonstrated ability to design and interpret thermal-material or high-enthalpy tests.

• Ability to work directly with structures, GNC, avionics, propulsion and test teams.

• Willingness to be highly hands-on in a small, fast-moving hardware organization.

Nice-to-have

• Experience owning a reentry or hypersonic vehicle from cradle to grave.

• Experience with ablative TPS materials, joints, attachments and penetrations.

• Experience with arcjets, plasma torches, engine-plume rigs or other high-enthalpy test methods.

• Experience designing flight thermal instrumentation.

• Prior work at a fast-moving startup.

Hop Aero will only consider U.S. persons as defined by ITAR for this role. Hop Aero will not sponsor visas for this role.