Thermal Engineer, Thermal Protection Systems (TPS)

We need to output HTML fragment with sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule. Only include sections that have real specific content. The posting includes "About The Team", "About The Role", "What You'll Do", "Required Qualifications", "Preferred Qualifications", "US Salary Range", "Benefits". Also there is "About The Team" maybe not needed as heading? The instruction: use

for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule). So we can map content to these headings. We need to avoid repeating job title as heading. No Job ID etc. Remove boilerplate like scam warnings, EEO, legal, navigation, cookie, duplicated lines, application instructions. Also remove "Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams", "Data Privacy", etc. We need to preserve all substantive information. So we need to include content from About The Team? Possibly not needed as a section heading; maybe we can incorporate into About the role? But instruction says include a section ONLY when posting has real, specific content for it. We have content for About the role (the paragraph after "About The Role"). Also we have Responsibilities (What You'll Do). Requirements (maybe combine Required Qualifications?). Qualifications (maybe Required Qualifications?). Skills (maybe Preferred Qualifications?). Benefits (the benefits paragraph). Pay (US Salary Range). Schedule (not present, so omit). Also we might include About the Team as a section? Not in the list of allowed headings but could be considered "About the team" not listed; but we could omit as not required. The instruction says use

for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule). It doesn't forbid other headings, but says use those for section headings. Probably we should stick to those headings only. So we will create sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay. Omit Schedule. Now we need to fill each with appropriate content. About the role: The paragraph after "About The Role": "We are looking for a Thermal Engineer specializing in Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) to join our team. In this role, you will own the design, analysis, and validation of thermal protection for hypersonic and high-speed flight systems operating in extreme aerothermal environments. This role is ideal for someone with deep expertise in aerothermal heating, ablative material response, and high-temperature thermal analysis — someone who can work across first-principles hand calculations, material response modeling, and detailed CFD to guide fast, high-consequence design decisions for systems where thermal survival is the critical constraint." We'll put that in

. Responsibilities: The bullet list under "What You'll Do". We'll convert each line to

inside

. Need to preserve all details. List items: - Own TPS design, material selection, and thermal analysis for hypersonic and high-speed flight vehicles, including missiles, reentry systems, and advanced flight platforms. - Perform aerothermal heating analysis using engineering correlations, boundary-layer methods, and CFD to define the thermal environment across flight trajectories. - Conduct ablation and material response modeling to predict TPS recession, in-depth thermal response, and structural thermal margins under mission-representative conditions. - Evaluate and select TPS materials, including carbon phenolic, PICA, silicone-based ablators, ceramics, and high-temperature composites, based on aerothermal loads, mass constraints, and manufacturability. - Partner with aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, and systems engineers to integrate TPS into vehicle design while managing mass, volume, and performance tradeoffs. - Define and execute thermal and material characterization tests, including arcjet testing, furnace testing, and instrumented flight-article thermal testing. - Build and maintain thermal models spanning hand calculations through detailed FEA/CFD to predict system performance, establish design limits, and support qualification. - Present TPS status, risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations in internal design reviews and customer-facing technical reviews. - Support failure reviews and root-cause investigations using test data, thermal analysis, and first-principles reasoning. We'll keep as is. Requirements: Possibly the "Required Qualifications" section. We'll put that as Requirements. Content: - MS or PhD in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Physics, or a related field with a focus on aerothermodynamics, heat transfer, thermal sciences, or materials science. - 2+ years of experience in TPS design, aerothermal analysis, or high-temperature material response for aerospace or defense systems. - Strong first-principles understanding of aerodynamic heating, ablation, high-temperature heat transfer, and material thermal response. - Experience with material response modeling tools such as FIAT, CMA, TITAN, or equivalent ablation/thermal response codes. - Experience supporting thermal design for hypersonic vehicles, reentry systems, missiles, rocket nozzles, or other systems operating in extreme aerothermal environments. - Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance. We'll put each as
• . Qualifications: Could be "Preferred Qualifications". We'll put that as Qualifications (or Skills?). The instruction lists Qualifications and Skills separate. We could treat Required Qualifications as Requirements, Preferred Qualifications as Qualifications, and maybe Skills as something else? But we have no explicit skills list besides preferred qualifications which include experience with tools etc. Could map Preferred Qualifications to Skills. However we have both Qualifications and Skills headings allowed. We could put Preferred Qualifications under Qualifications, and maybe extract any explicit skills (like MATLAB, Python) under Skills. But the preferred qualifications list includes experience with tools, etc. Could split: Qualifications: preferred qualifications (experience, education). Skills: specific technical skills (MATLAB, Python, etc.). But the instruction says prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones. Might be better to combine Preferred Qualifications into Qualifications and omit Skills if no distinct skills section. However we have explicit skills like MATLAB, Python, etc. Could create Skills section with those. Let's decide: We'll have Qualifications = Preferred Qualifications (the list). Skills = specific technical skills mentioned: MATLAB, Python, or similar tools for trajectory-based heating analysis, thermal margin assessment, or engineering trade studies; familiarity with NASA TPS heritage tools and databases (TPSX, CEA, CBAero); experience with radiation modeling tools such as NEQAIR, HARA, or equivalent nonequilibrium radiation solvers; experience with aerothermal CFD tools such as DPLR, US3D, Loci-CHEM, CFD++, ANSYS Fluent, or STAR-CCM+ for high-speed reacting flow analysis; experience with arcjet testing, thermal characterization testing, or flight-article thermal instrumentation; experience with high-temperature materials including carbon phenolic, carbon-carbon, PICA, SLA-561V, silicone-based ablators, or ceramic matrix composites. Actually many of those are also in preferred qualifications. To avoid duplication, we could just put Preferred Qualifications as Qualifications and not have Skills. But the instruction says we can include Skills section if posting has real specific content for it. The posting does have specific content for skills (tools, languages). So we could create Skills section with those. But we need to avoid duplication: we can split the preferred qualifications into two groups: qualifications (experience, education) and skills (tools, languages). However the preferred qualifications list includes both experience and skills. Let's parse: Preferred Qualifications: - Experience with aerothermal CFD tools such as DPLR, US3D, Loci-CHEM, CFD++, ANSYS Fluent, or STAR-CCM+ for high-speed reacting flow analysis. - Experience with arcjet testing, thermal characterization testing, or flight-article thermal instrumentation. - Experience with high-temperature materials including carbon phenolic, carbon-carbon, PICA, SLA-561V, silicone-based ablators, or ceramic matrix composites. - Experience with radiation modeling tools such as NEQAIR, HARA, or equivalent nonequilibrium radiation solvers. - Experience using MATLAB, Python, or similar tools for trajectory-based heating analysis, thermal margin assessment, or engineering trade studies. - Familiarity with NASA TPS heritage tools and databases (TPSX, CEA, CBAero). - Experience supporting PDR/CDR, qualification testing, or flight programs. - Strong motivation to support Anduril's mission of defending the United States and allied partners. We could treat the first six as Skills, and the last two as Qualifications (experience supporting PDR/CDR, motivation). But motivation is not a qualification per se. Might be better to just put all under Qualifications and omit Skills. However the instruction says "Prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones." So having both Qualifications and Skills might be thin. Better to combine into Qualifications. Thus we will have sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Benefits, Pay. We'll omit Skills and Schedule. Now Benefits: The paragraph after "Benefits": "The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including: At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits." We need to preserve all substantive information. We'll include that as

  under Benefits heading. Pay: The US Salary Range line: "US Salary Range $129,000—$171,000 USD". We'll put that as

  under Pay heading. We must not include boilerplate like "The salary range for this role is an estimate..." that is actually part of Benefits section? It appears under Benefits heading in the original. We'll keep it. Now we need to output only HTML fragment, no markdown fences. Let's craft:

  About the role

  We are looking for a Thermal Engineer specializing in Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) to join our team. In this role, you will own the design, analysis, and validation of thermal protection for hypersonic and high-speed flight systems operating in extreme aerothermal environments. This role is ideal for someone with deep expertise in aerothermal heating, ablative material response, and high-temperature thermal analysis — someone who can work across first-principles hand calculations, material response modeling, and detailed CFD to guide fast, high-consequence design decisions for systems where thermal survival is the critical constraint.

  Responsibilities

  • Own TPS design, material selection, and thermal analysis for hypersonic and high-speed flight vehicles, including missiles, reentry systems, and advanced flight platforms.
  • Perform aerothermal heating analysis using engineering correlations, boundary-layer methods, and CFD to define the thermal environment across flight trajectories.
  • Conduct ablation and material response modeling to predict TPS recession, in-depth thermal response, and structural thermal margins under mission-representative conditions.
  • Evaluate and select TPS materials, including carbon phenolic, PICA, silicone-based ablators, ceramics, and high-temperature composites, based on aerothermal loads, mass constraints, and manufacturability.
  • Partner with aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, and systems engineers to integrate TPS into vehicle design while managing mass, volume, and performance tradeoffs.
  • Define and execute thermal and material characterization tests, including arcjet testing, furnace testing, and instrumented flight-article thermal testing.
  • Build and maintain thermal models spanning hand calculations through detailed FEA/CFD to predict system performance, establish design limits, and support qualification.
  • Present TPS status, risks, tradeoffs,