Propulsion Systems Engineer

About the role

You will join the propulsion team of an aerospace company developing engines or rocket motors that power the vehicle. The team owns propulsion system design, integration, and testing from concept through flight qualification. This role matters because propulsion is the beating heart of every aerospace vehicle: thrust, efficiency, and reliability numbers you deliver define mission capability, and engines do not get second chances in flight. You will develop an instinct for how engines really behave: the transient nobody modeled, the combustion instability that appears at one operating point, the turbomachinery wear pattern that tells a story about the flow path. Your test plans will be designed to learn as much as possible from every expensive firing, with instrumentation placed to answer the specific questions the design team is debating. You will work hand in glove with controls engineers, because modern engines are as much software as hardware, and with manufacturing, because a brilliant design that cannot be built repeatably is a liability. You will treat every anomaly as a gift: engines teach their lessons through failures, and your job is to learn them on the test stand rather than in flight.

What you will achieve

• Deliver propulsion system designs meeting thrust, specific impulse, and weight targets with hot-fire or engine test correlation within 3 percent of predictions
• Cut development risk by 30 percent through component-level testing: injectors, turbomachinery, or combustors validated before full system tests
• Own engine system modeling: cycle analysis, transient simulation, and off-design performance predictions
• Drive test campaigns from test plan through data analysis, converting every firing into design improvements
• Ship flight-qualified propulsion systems with complete qualification documentation for customer and range approval
• Increase test learning per firing by designing instrumented test matrices that isolate variables and answer the design team's open questions

What you will bring

Must-haves

• 2 to 5 years of experience in aerospace propulsion: gas turbines, rocket engines, or electric propulsion systems
• Strong understanding of thermodynamics, compressible flow, and combustion or plasma physics as applicable
• Proficiency with cycle analysis tools (NPSS, GasTurb) or chemical equilibrium codes (CEA) for your propulsion type
• Experience with propulsion testing: test stands, instrumentation, and data analysis of hot-fire or engine runs
• Working knowledge of turbomachinery, combustors, nozzles, or thruster physics relevant to the role
• Familiarity with propulsion system integration: feed systems, controls, and vehicle interfaces
• Rigorous safety discipline for high-energy testing operations

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with additive manufacturing for propulsion components (injectors, chambers)
• Knowledge of green propellants or advanced cycles (rotating detonation, combined cycle)
• Exposure to electric propulsion: Hall thrusters, ion engines, or electrothermal systems
• Understanding of range safety and flight termination system requirements
• Experience with health monitoring and prognostics for propulsion systems