Staff Propulsion Engineer, Engine Base Heatshield (Aerospace)

Location: Long Beach, California, United States

Salary: $164,000–$246,000 USD per year

Company

hirify.global develops rockets, manufacturing systems, and the Terran R launch vehicle to deliver customer payloads to orbit.

What you will do

• Design, analyze, develop, test, and qualify structural heatshield hardware for multiple Aeon-R engine and flight configurations.
• Use development testing and flight data to iterate hardware and assess its suitability for reuse.
• Analyze post-flight heatshield conditions and identify improvements for future designs.
• Optimize mechanical interfaces with Responsible Engineers across the Propulsion and Vehicle organizations.
• Collaborate with manufacturing, supply chain, and integration teams to transition designs into production and install them on Aeon-R engines and the Terran R vehicle.
• Oversee hardware builds on the manufacturing floor and gather feedback from technicians and manufacturing engineers.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in science, engineering, technology, mathematics, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience designing structural hardware and thermal protection systems.
• Experience applying fluid, thermal, structural, and mechanical design fundamentals.
• Experience with CAD software, including Siemens NX, SOLIDWORKS, or similar tools.
• Demonstrated experience with GD&T and mechanical drafting.
• Strong written and oral communication skills, autonomy, schedule ownership, and experience mentoring junior engineers.

Nice to have

• Experience designing propulsion components and systems for extreme thermal environments.
• Direct experience with thermal protection systems or heatshields.
• Experience across development, qualification, production ramp-up, and final integration.
• Experience with Siemens NX, Teamcenter, ANSYS Workbench, and aerospace standards such as AS, NAS, or SAE.

Culture & Benefits

• Autonomy, ownership, and bottoms-up technical decision-making.
• Cross-functional collaboration across propulsion, manufacturing, software, avionics, and corporate teams.
• Competitive salary and equity.
• Generous paid time off and sick leave, parental leave, and an annual learning and development stipend.