Senior Propulsion Engineer - Components (Aerospace)

Location: On-site in El Segundo, California, United States. Occasional travel to suppliers and test sites is typically less than 10% of the time.

Salary: $140,333–$179,314 per year for the Senior level, plus potential stock options and/or long-term cash awards.

Company

hirify.global develops commercial space infrastructure, including in-orbit pharmaceutical processing, reentry capsules, heat shields, and satellite buses, with vehicles and equipment built, integrated, and tested in-house.

What you will do

• Own a significant portion of the W-Series propulsion component portfolio from requirements and specifications through development, qualification, production, and flight.
• Design Varda-owned components, including valves, regulators, filters, burst disks, manifolds, and instrumentation, with CAD, detailed drawings, GD&T, tolerance analysis, seal and spring design, and supporting structural and fluid analysis.
• Specify, source, and qualify purchased components; lead supplier technical interfaces, review qualification and acceptance data, and drive corrective action or second sourcing.
• Author and execute ATP/QTP campaigns, characterize performance across pressure and temperature envelopes, establish pass/fail criteria, and document results.
• Support vehicle build, integration, testing, and flight operations, including nonconformance disposition and anomaly investigations through root cause and closure.
• Represent components in design reviews, FMEAs, hazard analyses, and range-safety interactions; mentor engineers and develop propulsion component standards.

Requirements

• B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related discipline; equivalent professional experience may be considered.
• At least 3 years of hands-on experience designing, qualifying, or owning fluid components for spacecraft, launch vehicles, or comparable high-pressure hardware, on the vehicle or component-supplier side.
• Working knowledge of sealing, force balance, spring sizing, friction, flow paths, materials compatibility, material finishes, and wear.
• Mechanical design proficiency with CAD, PLM-based assembly management, detailed drawings with GD&T per ASME Y14.5, and tolerance analysis.
• Experience with component pressure and leak testing and ATP/QTP execution under SMC-S-016 or an equivalent standard, including procedure authorship and pass/fail criteria.
• Hands-on experience building and testing pressurized hardware with technicians.
• Demonstrated technical ownership of nonconformances and anomalies through root cause and corrective action across teams and suppliers.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States and qualify as a U.S. person for access to export-controlled technology under ITAR requirements.

Nice to have

• 6+ years of spacecraft or launch-vehicle fluid component experience, including clean-sheet design of a valve, regulator, or similar component through qualification and flight.
• Experience with low-leakage on-orbit propulsion components, HTP, other strong oxidizers, or high-pressure gas systems.
• Analysis experience with FEA of pressure-containing parts, 1D fluid-network modeling, valve dynamics, fatigue, and fracture control.
• Electromechanical and instrumentation knowledge, including solenoid valve interfaces and pressure transducer and RTD calibration, excitation, and error budgets.
• Supplier management for COTS and build-to-print aerospace components, including source selection, audits, and data-package review.
• Familiarity with AIAA S-080, AIAA S-081, and AFSPCMAN 91-710 range-safety requirements.
• Knowledge of precision fluid-hardware manufacturing and inspection, including machining, deburring, welding, electropolishing, precision cleaning, CMM, and NDE.
• Experience establishing propulsion-component testing capabilities in high-cadence, high-throughput environments.
• Prior technical sub-discipline leadership and development of engineering standards within a propulsion organization.
• Exceptional technical communication in specifications, test procedures, data-package reviews, and engineering memos.

Culture & Benefits

• Hands-on work across propulsion systems, structures, production, thermal, avionics, and GNC.
• Work includes test-stand development and operations, production-floor support, supplier visits, and issue investigations.
• Eligible for stock options and/or long-term cash awards.
• Inclusive equal-opportunity workplace with employment decisions based on merit, qualifications, and performance.