Senior Engine Cycle Engineer (Liquid Rocket Engine)

Location: Parsdorf, Bavaria, Germany; occasional travel for test and launch operations

Company

hirify.global develops sustainable launch solutions for small and medium-sized satellites and constellations in Low Earth Orbit.

What you will do

• Own the engine cycle and top-level technical architecture of a pump-fed liquid rocket engine.
• Build, maintain, and validate cycle models for nominal, throttled, off-nominal, startup, and shutdown conditions.
• Lead cycle trade studies, sensitivity analyses, engine sizing, performance prediction, and definition of principal operating points.
• Drive architecture trade-offs across combustion devices, turbomachinery, valves, feed systems, ignition, controls, structures, thermal management, and engine layout.
• Own engine requirements, assumptions, interfaces, technical budgets, and development roadmap.
• Coordinate technical reviews and multidisciplinary design and test activities, providing recommendations to propulsion and vehicle leadership.

Requirements

• MSc in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, or a comparable technical discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• Several years of experience in liquid rocket engine development, including engine cycle analysis, engine architecture, or propulsion system integration.
• Hands-on experience with high-pressure, pump-fed liquid rocket engine cycles.
• Strong understanding of engine cycles, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, turbomachinery power balance, steady-state modelling, engine sizing, and performance prediction.
• Experience planning multidisciplinary engine development or test campaigns and driving technical roadmaps.
• Proficiency in Python, MATLAB, or a comparable programming language; fluent English required.

Nice to have

• Experience with transient cycle modelling, including startup, shutdown, throttling, and off-nominal conditions.
• Experience taking engine designs from cycle definition and system-level trades into hardware and testing.
• Experience with engine controls, operability, stability, failure analysis, or hot-fire model correlation.
• Broad knowledge of valves, feed systems, ignition, controls, structures, and thermal management.

Culture & Benefits

• Virtual company share participation program.
• 30 days of vacation.
• Company pension plan with a 20% employer contribution after the probation period.
• Subsidised lunches and a fully financed Deutschlandticket.
• Sponsored sports club membership, rental workwear with laundry service, and childcare allowance.
• Individual learning budget after the probation period.