Turbomachinery Tech Lead Verified today

About the role

You will serve as the technical authority for turbomachinery products in the Blue Origin Engines business unit, which designs, develops, manufactures, and tests engines and propulsion systems for commercial, civil, national security, and human spaceflight. This is a hands-on technical architecture role with deep analysis responsibility and the authority to set standards, adjudicate trades, and represent turbomachinery as the technical voice in system-level forums.

Key responsibilities

• Serve as technical authority for turbomachinery products from concept through qualification and production.
• Own the turbomachinery technical development roadmap, defining the sequence of trades, analyses, and decisions to mature each product.
• Establish design guidelines, key design parameters (KDPs), and margin requirements across all technical disciplines.
• Define analysis methods, validation rigor, and documentation expectations appropriate to each lifecycle phase.
• Adjudicate turbomachinery architecture trades: staging, speed, machine type, rotor support, seal selection, and configuration.
• Own the bidirectional interface between turbomachinery design and system performance, including how design conditions and performance targets affect system operability limits and how system ConOps affect turbomachinery function, reliability, and life.
• Identify turbomachinery-driven constraints on system operability and work with systems engineers to resolve or accommodate them.
• Baseline turbomachinery products at each lifecycle gate with the Branch Lead and define technical content and success criteria for design reviews.
• Own the turbomachinery performance baseline, including predictions, margins, and validated models that form the technical basis for each product.
• Perform or direct analysis across meanline aerodynamic design, CFD, secondary flow and seal modeling, structural analysis, dynamic loading and forced response, and rotordynamic analysis.
• Establish and enforce margin requirements for safe designs in each discipline.
• Define correlation basis, property databases, and validation anchors with traceability to heritage data or published sources.
• Drive continuous improvement of analysis tools, methods, and automation.
• Represent turbomachinery in program-level reviews, trade studies, and key decision points.
• Mentor engineers in turbomachinery fundamentals and engineering judgment.
• Support hardware build, assembly, acceptance testing, and anomaly investigation; provide dispositions for non-conforming hardware.
• Develop and maintain design requirements and documentation; contribute technical artifacts to subsystem and program gated reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR, MRR, TRR).

Minimum qualifications

• M.S. in Mechanical Engineering or Aerospace Engineering, with emphasis on turbomachinery, fluid mechanics, or thermodynamics.
• 10+ years of experience in turbomachinery design and analysis for aerospace propulsion systems (turbopumps, gas turbines, or power turbines).
• 5+ years with technical decision-making authority over multi-discipline turbomachinery development.
• Ability to perform or critically evaluate analysis in meanline aerodynamic design, CFD, secondary flow and seal modeling, structural analysis (static and fatigue), dynamic loading and forced response (Campbell diagrams, modal analysis), and rotordynamics.
• Understanding of margins required for safe turbomachinery designs in each discipline.
• Knowledge of how turbomachinery performance characteristics propagate into system-level behavior and vice versa.
• Demonstrated experience establishing design processes, analysis standards, and margin frameworks for turbomachinery hardware programs.
• Track record taking turbomachinery products from concept through hardware with personal accountability for the technical baseline.
• Proficiency with commercial analysis tools (ANSYS suite or equivalent) and scripting for analysis automation (Python preferred).
• Familiarity with industry standards, including relevant AIAA/AGMA design practices.
• Experience working in cross-disciplinary engineering teams.
• Track record of taking ownership, showing resilience, and consistently delivering results.

Preferred qualifications

• 15+ years of relevant industry experience.
• Experience with rocket propulsion turbomachinery (LOX/LH2, LOX/RP-1, LOX/CH4, or similar).
• Experience with closed-loop cycle turbomachinery designs and systems.
• Familiarity with additive manufacturing for turbomachinery components (blisks, impellers, housings).
• Experience with non-traditional rotor support systems (dry gas seals, hydrostatic bearings, foil bearings).
• Experience with transient operability analysis including spool-up, load rejection, and thermal transients.
• Familiarity with NASA GFSSP, Sinda/FLUINT, or equivalent flow network solvers.
• Experience with parametric cost modeling and design-to-cost trades.
• Prior experience at a rocket propulsion or gas turbine OEM.
• Demonstrated use of or genuine enthusiasm to adopt modern AI-assisted engineering tools (e.g., LLM-based design, analysis, and scripting assistants).

Additional information

Relocation provided. Travel expected up to 25% of the time.

Base pay range for WA applicants: $169,624.00 - $237,473.25. Other site ranges may differ.

Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with company match up to 5%, Education Support Program, stock options for regular employees (20+ hours/week), and up to 4 weeks paid time off per year plus up to 14 company-paid holidays.

US citizenship requirement: Applicants must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted as a refugee or granted asylum.

Background check: Required for all positions.