Lead Aerothermal Engineer

About the role

The role Hop Aero is hiring an Aerothermal Engineer to own the aerothermal environment and heat-shield program at Hop Aero. This is a foundational technical role - this person will establish our internal capability from first-principles.

Responsibilities

• You will be the responsible engineer for all aerothermal, hypersonic, thermal protection systems, and re-entry matters.
• Develop coupled trajectory, aerodynamic and thermal analyses with the GNC and systems teams.
• Lead heat-shield architecture and material trades.
• Translate thermal predictions into vehicle requirements, interfaces, mass budgets and instrumentation needs.
• Plan and execute coupon, subscale and flight-like thermal testing.
• Develop internal high-enthalpy test capability.
• Support vehicle configuration trades related to aerothermodynamics.
• Establish analytical correlation and model-update processes using ground-test and flight data.
• Own aerothermal and TPS risks through design reviews and flight-readiness reviews.

Requirements

• Demonstrated ability to execute in a similar role
• 5-10 years of relevant experience with hypersonic aerothermodynamics, atmospheric entry, high-temperature flows or other relevant thermal protection systems.
• Experience with aerodynamic heating, thermal analysis and relevant CFD or engineering analysis tools.
• Demonstrated ability to design and interpret thermal-material or high-enthalpy tests.
• Ability to work directly with structures, GNC, avionics, propulsion and test teams.
• Willingness to be highly hands-on in a small, fast-moving hardware organization.

Hop Aero will only consider U.S. persons as defined by ITAR for this role. Hop Aero will not sponsor visas for this role.

Qualifications

• Experience owning a reentry or hypersonic vehicle from cradle to grave.
• Experience with ablative TPS materials, joints, attachments and penetrations.
• Experience with arcjets, plasma torches, engine-plume rigs or other high-enthalpy test methods.
• Experience designing flight thermal instrumentation.
• Prior work at a fast-moving startup.