Senior Thermal Structural Analysis Engineer

About the Role

The Senior Thermal-Structural Analysis Engineer is responsible for substantiating spacecraft structures operating in high-temperature and thermally severe environments. This role owns coupled thermal–structural analyses used to evaluate stress, deformation, and margin of safety for propulsion-adjacent and elevated-temperature hardware. The position works closely with propulsion, thermal, materials, and test teams to ensure structural integrity is maintained across qualification and flight environments.

Primary Responsibilities – Thermal-Structural Substantiation

• Develop and maintain coupled thermal–structural finite element models for spacecraft hardware operating in elevated-temperature environments  
• Perform thermo-mechanical stress, distortion, fatigue, and margin of safety analyses driven by thermal gradients and transient heating  
• Evaluate high-temperature material behavior and structural performance using analysis and first-principles hand calculations  
• Partner with propulsion, thermal, and design teams to validate and optimize structural designs for strength, stiffness, weight, and thermal durability  
• Support structural verification of propulsion-adjacent and thermally driven hardware through qualification and flight readiness  
• Define, execute, and interpret elevated-temperature material strength testing to characterize mechanical properties and support thermo-mechanical structural verification

Additional Responsibilities – Testing, Correlation & Automation

• Define and support elevated-temperature material and structural test campaigns to characterize thermo-mechanical behavior  
• Correlate analytical predictions with high-temperature test data and resolve discrepancies using first-principles reasoning  
• Develop Python-based tools to automate coupled analysis post-processing, reporting, and verification workflows  
• Contribute to documentation of thermal-structural assumptions, methods, and verification rationale

Basic Qualifications

• BS or MS in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline or equivalent
• 5+ years of experience in thermal-structural or thermo-mechanical analysis for aerospace systems or related industry experience
• Experience performing coupled thermal–structural stress, deformation, and margin of safety analyses  

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Proficiency developing and maintaining coupled thermal–structural FEMs using FEMAP/Nastran or Siemens Simcenter 3D  
• Experience evaluating elevated-temperature material behavior and structural performance
• Experience supporting propulsion or thruster-adjacent hardware operating in high-temperature environments  
• Proficiency with Python and/or MATLAB for analysis automation, data reduction, and reporting  
• Experience using version control systems such as Git in an engineering analysis environment
• Strong ability to perform coupled thermal–structural analysis for spacecraft hardware in elevated-temperature environments  
• Deep understanding of thermal gradient-driven stress, distortion, and failure mechanisms
• Ability to model, interpret, and validate high-temperature material behavior within structural analyses  
• Proficiency in using first-principles hand calculations to bound and verify coupled FEM results  
• Ability to correlate thermo-mechanical analysis with high-temperature test data and resolve discrepancies  
• Clear technical communication skills for documenting assumptions, methods, and verification rationale