Senior Aerothermal Analysis Engineer Verified today

The Role

The Senior Aerothermal Analysis Engineer will own the aerothermal environments for CarryAll, combining high-fidelity CFD, engineering-level methods, and test data into the database that drives thermal protection system (TPS) sizing, structural design, and trajectory. On every return, CarryAll's deployable heatshield and structure pass through very different flow regimes as the vehicle slows from Mach 25, from rarefied upper-atmosphere flow through peak heating and down to subsonic descent. Because CarryAll is built to fly again, the environments don't just size a heatshield for one flight; they define how the thermal protection system holds up across many.

Responsibilities

• Own aerothermal environment definition for CarryAll across its full flight envelope, from early trade studies through flight, and keep it current as the design evolves.
• Set up and run high-enthalpy CFD at the key trajectory points that anchor the environments, capturing thermochemical non-equilibrium effects where they matter.
• Bridge the gaps between CFD points with fast engineering heating methods, so every trajectory and attitude of interest has a credible answer without a full solve.
• Combine CFD, engineering estimates, and ground and flight test results into a single environment product with clearly stated uncertainties and margins.
• Work alongside Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) engineers and hardware owners such as TPS, structures, and mechanism engineers to define environments that set TPS thickness, structural temperatures, and trajectory limits for flight hardware.
• Add solver capability when standard tools can't capture the physics, such as custom US3D subroutines for finite-rate chemistry, ablation products, and CarryAll-specific boundary conditions.
• Prove out new and existing methods against analytical cases, arc-jet and wind tunnel tests, and flight data.
• Automate environment generation and delivery so updates keep pace with design iterations.
• Manage and maintain compute resources.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering.
• 5+ years of experience in hypersonic, supersonic, reentry, or rocketry aerothermodynamic analysis.
• Experience running high-enthalpy flow solvers (FUN3D, US3D, DPLR or similar).
• Experience with parallel scientific computing (e.g., MPI), high-performance computing environments, and large-scale CFD campaign automation.
• Experience with handbook and engineering-level heating estimation methods (e.g., Fay-Riddell, Tauber, MINIVER-class tools, or similar correlations).
• Strong fundamentals in hypersonic aerodynamics, boundary layer physics, and convective and radiative heat transfer.
• Experience modeling high-temperature gas dynamics and chemistry, including thermochemical non-equilibrium.
• Proficiency in programming languages like Python, Fortran, C++, or MATLAB for analysis tooling and automation.
• Proven ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment with rapid iteration.

Preferred Experience

• Active U.S. Government Security Clearance.
• Master's or PhD in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering, or an equivalent field.
• Direct experience with FUN3D, including extension through user-defined subroutines.
• Experience developing aerodynamic databases and environment products for flight vehicles.

Location and Work Environment

Playa Vista, California. In-person, five days per week.