Principal Dynamics Engineer

Responsibilities

• Drive the definition and execution of dynamic testing at the component, subsystem, vehicle, and stack level, including test planning and coordination, test analysis, and model correlation
• Lead innovation on cross-disciplinary analysis and test methodologies
• Own and evolve spacecraft dynamics approaches to optimize for the company’s business
• Create software tools to support data processing and simulation frameworks
• Collaborate with design engineers, analysts, and external customers to develop payload products
• Apply first principles in developing frameworks for both dynamics and non-dynamics analyses
• Lead code reviews for simulation and analysis tools
• Utilize analysis and test to provide data-driven engineering guidance and decisions
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to junior and mid-level dynamics engineers, contributing to the growth of the analysis team
• Derive loads, environments, and other dynamics-driven design and test criteria for payload and hardware teams, including vibration, shock, and jitter maximum predicted environments and response-limit derivation (e.g., NASA 7004C), and develop new response-limiting methodologies as needed
• Own coupled loads analysis (CLA) for vehicle programs, including bus-and-payload superelement/Craig-Bampton model builds for ascent and on-orbit dynamic environments, through test-level definition
• Lead jitter and pointing performance analysis, including Monte Carlo dispersion modeling and dynamic coupling with GNC control loops
• Direct vibroacoustic analysis, including patch-method framework development, and lead acoustic testing of the vehicle
• Drive definition of vehicle- and stack-level modal test and analysis methodologies, including ground and flight test correlation

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, physics, or mathematics
• 8+ years of work experience in dynamics from industry or academia
• Master’s degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, physics, or mathematics (nice to have)
• Strong understanding of low and high frequency dynamics (vibration, acoustics, shock, modal testing)
• Deep experience with testing and measurements
• Deep experience with finite element analysis software (e.g. FEMAP, Nastran)
• Strong experience in software development in Python
• Strong knowledge of digital signal processing, statistics, and structural mechanics
• Capable of identifying and solving complex problems with little to no supervision or direction
• Excellent communication skills of analysis and test insights
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, unstructured start-up environment
• Experience with coupled loads analysis (CLA) and Craig-Bampton/superelement model reduction techniques
• Experience with jitter and pointing performance analysis, including Monte Carlo methods for dispersion modeling
• Familiarity with rigid-body dynamics and GNC-coupled analysis, including dynamic coupling with controllers and pointing impacts
• Experience with multibody dynamics simulation, including rigid-body dynamics and familiarity with Lagrangian formulations; familiarity with LS-DYNA is a plus
• Familiarity with vibroacoustic analysis (e.g., patch, diffuse-field, Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA, e.g., Wave6), or Boundary Element Method (BEM))
• Familiarity with HALT/HASS testing and dynamics-driven PCBA-level failure mechanisms (e.g., solder joint fatigue, component lead flexure)
• Experience building and maintaining shared analysis tooling, including version control and continuous-integration practices