Operational Performance Engineer, Mass Properties and Vehicle Performance (Aerospace)

Location: On-site in Huntington Beach, California, United States

Salary: $115,000–$150,000 annually for the Operational Performance Engineer level; $155,000–$195,000 annually for the senior level, with equity offered for senior offers.

Company

hirify.global is a rapidly growing defense technology startup developing next-generation autonomous and decentralized defense platforms.

What you will do

• Own vehicle mass properties across configurations and mission states, including mass, center of gravity, and moments and products of inertia.
• Manage vehicle mass fractions, CG envelopes, subsystem mass budgets, and inertia tracking against vehicle-level requirements.
• Deliver weekly subsystem mass reports, CG status updates, trend analyses, and vehicle-closure risk assessments.
• Assess the weight impact of engineering trades and reconcile analytical predictions with actual part weights, CAD, as-built hardware, and test data.
• Maintain performance baselines, budgets, margins, and assumptions across aerodynamics, propulsion, power, range, endurance, and payload.
• Automate performance tracking and reporting while partnering with MDAO engineers on shared tooling and data pipelines.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 2+ years of relevant experience in vehicle performance, mass properties, vehicle design, flight dynamics, systems engineering, or a related discipline.
• Dedicated mass properties experience on at least one complex aerospace vehicle program, including weight tracking, CG and inertia accounting, or mass budget management.
• Experience with configuration-controlled mass property records, multi-team mass budget management, and vehicle-level weight-impact analysis.
• Strong understanding of interactions among mass properties, aerodynamics, propulsion, structures, power, and controls.
• Experience using Python, Julia, MATLAB, or a similar technical computing language, plus the ability to communicate assumptions, limitations, and uncertainty clearly.

Nice to have

• Experience as a mass properties lead or weight engineer on a large or weight-critical vehicle program.
• Experience with electric or hybrid-electric aircraft, multiple vehicle programs, or aircraft, UAS, missiles, and rockets.
• Experience with Siemens NX, CATIA, or similar CAD/PLM tools.
• Experience building automated analysis, dashboards, or reporting workflows.
• Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time, on-site work within the Vehicle Design and Performance organization.
• Competitive salary, performance-based incentives, and equity participation.
• Healthcare, dental, vision, retirement savings, and paid time off.
• Funds for continuing education, training, and professional development.
• Employment requires authorization to work in the United States; the role may involve access to ITAR- and EAR-controlled information.

Hiring process

• Employment authorization is verified through E-Verify.
• Offers may be conditioned on authorization to receive export-controlled software or technology without sponsorship for an export license.