Propulsion Engine Manager

As an end-to-end space transportation company, Firefly Aerospace is on a mission to enable our world to launch, land, and operate in space anywhere, anytime. Our launch vehicles, lunar landers, and orbital vehicles provide government and commercial customers with full mission services from low Earth orbit to the surface of the Moon and beyond. Headquartered in north Austin, Texas, Firefly is looking for passionate, hardworking innovators to join our team and help fuel our successful trajectory into space.

SUMMARY

As Propulsion Engine Manager you will leverage your creativity, ingenuity, and experience to design, test, and produce the next generation of liquid rocket engines for space exploration and accessibility. At Firefly we strive to make the worlds simplest rocket engines by decreasing complexity to increase reliability and performance while lowering cost. In this role you will produce innovative solutions to challenging problems throughout a projects full life cycle, including design, analysis, manufacturing, testing, and operational support. You will take profound ownership of your projects, and will collaborate with other product groups (structures, fluid systems, avionics, vehicle/spacecraft systems) to make critical decisions. To be successful in this role, you should embrace challenging problems and be able to synthesize disparate pieces of information to establish best path forward. Your passion and determination will create leading edge propulsion systems in a fast-paced environment.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Extreme ownership of a full engine system. You will be the responsible engineer for one of Fireflys five liquid rocket engine programs.
• Lead a cross-functional team of propulsion engineers responsible for engine architecture including all design and analysis and testing for our next generation engine.
• You will be the technical expert for your engine program during reviews and failure investigations
• You will work with the departments manufacturing, build and test teams
• Serve as a mentor for the existing propulsion engineers, providing technical guidance and leadership
• Design and execute engine development, acceptance, and qualification campaigns in support of the program and vehicle objectives.
• Develop new, innovative design concepts for propulsion components and experimental tooling, that reduce part count and complexity
• Execute design for manufacturability changes to enhance production efficiency
• Identify and trade strategies to meet design requirements of flight hardware and tooling
• Make development decisions based on technical merit, risk, cost, schedule, and/or quality assurance
• Assist in the development of manufacturing, integration, and test processes, including work instructions, test procedures, and early build support
• Partner with engineering and production teams to generate ideas, designs, and improvements for current and next-generation liquid rocket engines

QUALIFICATIONS

Required

• BS in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering
• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills
• 6+ years of experience in a related aerospace or mechanical field, with a focus in propulsion or fluid systems
• Strong engineering fundamentals in compressible and incompressible flow, heat transfer, combustion devices, rocket engine cycles, and mechanics
• Demonstrated aptitude for leadership in solving complex problems
• A passion for product optimization design and rapid manufacturing
• Engineering experience across the full product lifecycle from idea to successful test
• Ability to be self-directed and balance several tasks at once
• Experience leading technical reviews (design & analysis) or investigations (risk, anomaly, or trade studies)
• Understanding of P&IDs, fluid system sizing, fluid component and instrumentation selection, fluid dynamics fundamentals, cryogenic systems and pressurized systems

Desired

• MS in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering
• Familiarity with presenting trade studies, risks, schedules, requirements, and budget to program management or leadership
• Proven experience in data review, data analysis, and report generation
• Experience with liquid rocket engine development, design, test, or flight operations
• Experience with liquid rocket engine subcomponent or pressurized component (valves, regulators, tubes, etc.) development, design, or test
• Hands-on experience with integrating test articles and sub-assemblies for test or production
• Experience with maturing a conceptual design for use in a production environment
• Proven experience in working with data acquisition systems and test instrumentation including pressure transducers, thermocouples, resistance temperature detectors, flow meters, load cells, and accelerometers
• Familiarity with some or all of the following software packages: Python, LabVIEW, GFSSP, Winplot, or other control, data acquisition, and reduction software