Aerospace Engineer - Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis, and Optimization

About the role

Firestorm Labs is seeking a highly skilled and motivated Aerospace Engineer to lead the development of our in-house Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis, and Optimization (MDAO) tool. This tool will sit at the heart of how Firestorm designs its next generation of mission-adaptable unmanned aerial systems, coupling aerodynamics, propulsion, structures, mass properties, stability & control, performance, and cost models into a unified, automated design environment.

Responsibilities

• Architect, develop, and maintain Firestorm’s MDAO framework (e.g., built on OpenMDAO or a comparable environment), including the underlying data structures, solver strategies, and workflow orchestration.
• Develop and integrate discipline analysis modules — aerodynamics (vortex-lattice, panel, and CFD-based), propulsion performance decks, structures and mass properties, stability & control, and mission/performance analysis.
• Create and integrate parametric geometry pipelines (e.g., OpenVSP or CAD-integrated) that enable rapid exploration of unconventional UAS configurations.
• Implement and apply optimization methods including gradient-based and gradient-free optimization, design of experiments, and surrogate modeling.
• Validate tool outputs against wind tunnel, flight test, and higher-fidelity analysis data, and quantify model uncertainty.
• Execute vehicle-level trade studies and sizing analyses to support new product development and customer-driven configuration changes.
• Work cross-functionally with airframe, propulsion, manufacturing, and autonomy teams to ensure the tool reflects real-world design constraints, including additive manufacturing considerations.
• Establish best practices for version control, testing, documentation, and continuous integration of engineering software.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering or a related field with 3+ years of relevant experience, or a Master’s degree with 1+ years.
• Strong foundation in aircraft conceptual/preliminary design, aerodynamics, flight performance, and stability & control.
• Proficiency in Python and experience developing engineering analysis software beyond one-off scripts.
• Hands-on experience with an MDAO framework (e.g., OpenMDAO, ModelCenter, Dakota, SUAVE) or demonstrated experience building multidisciplinary analysis pipelines.
• Experience with numerical optimization methods and design space exploration.
• Ability to operate in fast-paced, iterative development environments.
• U.S. Person status (Citizen or Permanent Resident) required due to ITAR regulations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s or PhD in Aerospace Engineering with a focus on MDAO, aircraft design, or applied optimization.
• Experience with tools such as OpenVSP, AVL, XFOIL, SU2, Fluent, STAR-CCM+, or NASTRAN.
• Experience with surrogate modeling, uncertainty quantification, or gradient-based optimization with analytic derivatives.
• Prior experience designing small UAS, especially Group 2–3 unmanned aircraft.
• Familiarity with design for additive manufacturing.
• Experience with software engineering practices: Git, CI/CD, unit testing, and containerized or HPC compute environments.