Thermal Dyanmics Engineer

About the Company

Our client is a well-capitalised space systems company on Florida's Space Coast, developing crewed habitat hardware for orbital and lunar missions. The underlying technology has decades of development behind it, and the business has moved out of R&D into production with a purpose-built manufacturing facility already operational. Funding is secure, including government programme funding, and the company is working toward flight hardware on a defined timeline. The engineering group is small and unusually senior, with several team members who have spent their careers on crewed habitat systems.

The Problem You Would Be Solving

The lunar surface is a brutal thermal environment. Surface temperatures swing by several hundred degrees between sunlight and darkness, and lunar night lasts weeks rather than hours. No sun means no solar power, which means constrained power, yet everything inside—electronics, science payloads, and eventually the crew—must still function. Solving this is the challenge. If you want genuinely hard thermal problems rather than incremental ones, this is one of the most demanding available.

Responsibilities

• Own thermal, structural, and dynamics analysis across the lifecycle, from concept through detailed design, test, and flight qualification.
• Build and maintain finite element models of structures, mechanisms, pressure systems, and integrated hardware.
• Perform linear and nonlinear static structural analysis: strength, stiffness, stability, buckling, margins of safety, and structural life.
• Conduct modal, frequency response, random vibration, sine vibration, shock, and transient dynamic analysis.
• Develop thermal models for steady-state and transient conditions, covering conduction, convection, and radiation.
• Perform coupled thermal-structural analysis, including thermal distortion and thermally induced stress.
• Define and assess launch, handling, deployment, pressure, operational, and environmental load cases.
• Analyse flexible and deployable structures and their interfaces with rigid hardware.
• Set analysis plans, assumptions, boundary conditions, material properties, and load definitions.
• Correlate models against component, subsystem, and system-level test data.
• Support structural, vibration, thermal vacuum, pressure, and qualification testing.
• Review drawings, CAD models, material selections, and interface requirements, and recommend practical design changes.
• Produce analysis reports, margins summaries, and certification documentation, and present to internal teams, customers, and technical review boards.

Requirements

• US citizenship.
• Degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, or a related technical subject.
• 4+ years performing structural, thermal, or dynamic analysis on complex engineered hardware.
• FEA capability in ANSYS, Abaqus, NASTRAN, FEMAP, or equivalent.
• Demonstrated experience across structural stress analysis, thermal analysis, modal and vibration analysis, shock or transient dynamics, and pressurised structure analysis.
• Solid understanding of aerospace materials, joints, fasteners, bonded interfaces, and load paths.
• The ability to set your own analysis approach, judge results, and recognise model limitations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Spacecraft, launch vehicle, pressure system, habitat, or deployable structure experience.
• Coupled thermal-structural analysis.
• Composites, membranes, flexible materials, or nonlinear contact behaviour.
• Random vibration, acoustic loading, shock response spectra, or coupled loads analysis.
• Planning or supporting vibration, thermal vacuum, pressure, structural load, or qualification testing.
• Familiarity with NASA, DoD, or commercial aerospace structural and environmental requirements.
• Model correlation against test data.
• Fatigue, fracture, creep, damage tolerance, or structural life assessment.
• Python or MATLAB scripting.

Culture

The client values big-company experience but rejects a "that's not my job" mentality. This is a small team where everyone pitches in outside their remit, and leadership is hands-on. They seek individuals who challenge assumptions and surface failure modes early rather than waiting to be asked.

Pay

Circa $175,000 depending on experience.

Benefits

Fully funded medical insurance for employees, typically worth $20,000 to $30,000 a year compared to comparable packages elsewhere.

Schedule

Onsite in Brevard County, Florida. Full-time and permanent preferred; the client may consider the right contractor.

Must be a US citizen.