Senior Thermal Structures Engineer Verified today

About Inversion

Inversion builds advanced reentry systems to deliver next-generation capabilities from space. The company designs spacecraft to deliver payloads anywhere on Earth in under an hour, operating through extreme reentry conditions and landing with high precision. Backed by Y Combinator, Spark Capital, and Lockheed Martin Ventures, and working with the U.S. Space Force and NASA, Inversion is advancing space-based defense and logistics.

What You'll Do

As the Senior Thermal Structures Engineer, you will own the detailed design of heat shield and hot structure hardware from concept through flight, with responsibility for both design and analysis of a key subsystem for a maneuverable reentry vehicle.

• Own detailed mechanical design of heat shield components and assemblies, including TPS panels, hot substructure, attachments, and interfaces to the vehicle
• Perform structural and thermal-structural analysis of your designs, from hand calculations through detailed finite element analysis
• Design for environments where thermally induced strains are a primary driver, managing CTE mismatch, thermal gradients, and constrained expansion across joints and interfaces
• Work with materials and manufacturing engineers to design components that can be fabricated, machined, and inspected in high-temperature composite material systems
• Define and support structural and thermal-structural testing to verify your designs, from element-level tests through qualification
• Develop part and assembly models, drawings, and GD&T, carrying designs from concept through released engineering

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent experience in a related field
• Typically 5+ years of experience in mechanical or structural design of aerospace hardware
• Experience performing structural analysis of your own designs, including both classical hand analysis and finite element analysis (e.g., Nastran, Abaqus, Ansys)
• Experience with thermal-structural analysis, including thermally induced stress and deflection
• Strong fundamentals in strength of materials, structural mechanics, and the design of fastened and bonded joints
• Proficiency with 3D CAD sufficient to own detailed part and assembly design end-to-end, including drawings and GD&T
• Proven ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment, including prototyping and rapid iteration of new products
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government Secret/Top Secret security clearance

Desired Qualifications

• Experience designing high-temperature structures where thermally induced strains are a major design driver (hypersonic airframes, turbine engine hot sections, exhaust structures)
• Experience designing high-density TPS components from reinforced carbon/carbon, carbon phenolic, or ceramic matrix composites
• Experience designing hot-structure attachment schemes, such as expansion or slip joints, standoffs, flexures, and compliant interfaces

Workplace

This position is on-site at Inversion HQ in Playa Vista, CA.