Turbomachinery Engineer II / Senior Turbomachinery Engineer I/II Verified today
About Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems that keep the world connected, protected, expand humanity's reach to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The Role
The Turbomachinery Engineer position is based in Long Beach, CA. You will own the design and development of turbomachinery hardware for the Archimedes engine, with full lifecycle ownership of clean sheet turbopump design. You will support the Neutron and Archimedes teams with deliverables for internal leadership, board of directors, and investors.
What You'll Do
- Drive design, manufacturing, testing, and flight of significant turbomachinery components and systems to meet cost, life, reusability, and reliability milestones
- Design and analyze rotating and stationary turbomachinery components, including hydrodynamics, mechanical, secondary systems, and integrated analysis
- Lead next-generation flowpath design and benchmarking of existing designs
- Work with the turbomachinery team to drive pump head and suction performance improvements
- Support manufacturing by working with the Manufacturing team to design components for optimal manufacturability
- Support component level and engine level testing to ensure pump testing needs are enveloped in engine development, qualification, and acceptance testing campaigns
- Ensure testing satisfies certification requirements
- Support flight campaign preparations, flight operations, flight data and hardware review, and reuse campaigns
- Evaluate early flight data to support certification efforts
- Work with vehicle fluids teams to ensure stable pump operation and performance in all phases of flight
- Define methodology used across the company for turbomachinery design, analysis, manufacturing, and test as a subject matter expert
- Travel occasionally to engineering offices, test sites, and launch sites to support turbomachinery development
- Serve as launch site engineering team liaison on an occasional basis for rapid on-site support
Turbomachinery Engineer II: Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical or aerospace engineering or equivalent
- 2+ years of turbomachinery design experience
- Experience with commercial design and analysis software
- Fundamental understanding of mechanical design and fluid dynamics principles
Senior Turbomachinery Engineer I: Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical or aerospace engineering or equivalent
- 5+ years of turbomachinery design experience
- Experience with commercial design and analysis software
- Fundamental understanding of mechanical design and fluid dynamics principles
Senior Turbomachinery Engineer II: Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical or aerospace engineering or equivalent
- 8+ years of turbomachinery design experience
- Experience with commercial design and analysis software
- Fundamental understanding of mechanical design and fluid dynamics principles
Nice to Have
- Proficiency in GD&T
- Professional experience with NX, Ansys, BladeGen, StarCCM
- Rocket turbomachinery experience and flowpath design
- Experience with compressible flows, cryogenic and real-gas fluids
- Experience with best practices for design, qualification and production
- Experience with a scrappy development environment
Compensation and Benefits
Base salary is determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related knowledge and skills, education, and experience.
Base Pay Range (CA Only): $126,000 - $176,000 USD
Benefits include: top tier medical HMO, PPO and 100% company-sponsored medical HSA plan option, dental and vision coverage, 3 weeks paid vacation and 5 days sick leave per year, 11 paid holidays per year, flexible spending and dependent care savings accounts, paid parental leave, disability insurance, life insurance, access to a 401(k) retirement plan with company match, Discounted employee stock purchase program, subsidized EV charging stations, onsite gym, food and drinks, and other discounts. Eligibility for benefits may vary based on employment status.
Employment Requirements
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), candidates seeking to work in US offices must be a U.S. citizen, lawful U.S. permanent resident (Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum, or be eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State and/or the U.S. Department of Commerce.
For candidates seeking to work in New Zealand offices: Background checks will be undertaken prior to any employment offers. You must be eligible to access equipment and data regulated by ITAR. You may be ineligible if you do not hold citizenship of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the European Union, or a country that is part of NATO, or if you hold ineligible dual citizenship or nationality.