Lead TPS Engineer

Posted:
9/18/2024, 10:13:15 AM

Location(s):
Torrance, California, United States ⋅ California, United States

Experience Level(s):
Senior

Field(s):
Mechanical Engineering

Workplace Type:
On-site

Turning Space into a Transportation Layer for Earth

Who We Are: 

Eras of humanity can often be defined by a dominant transportation mode - horse drawn carriage, ocean faring boats, or aircraft. These were spurred by a small group of people rigorously focused on building technology to achieve faster access to more of the world.  We seek to usher in a new era of humanity defined by universal access to the whole globe free of borders and the presence of a routine way from space to Earth. To do this, we are building highly maneuverable re-entry vehicles that can loiter in orbit before precision landing back on Earth.    

What You’ll Do: 

Inversion’s reentry vehicles are pushing the limits of hypersonic flight. As a Lead Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) Engineer, you will be responsible for bringing up Inversion’s in-house heatshield design and manufacturing teams. You will work alongside Inversion’s aerodynamic, structures, and aerothermal teams to design the flight TPS for Inversion’s lifting-body reentry vehicles and explore ideal TPS solutions for performance, production, and cost. In this role, you will: 

  • Develop, test, and qualify new or refined thermal protection systems for Inversion’s Arc vehicle. 
  • Develop the analysis and design workflow of the flight heatshields for flight vehicles. 
  • Design the production systems and optimize workflows to produce the heatshield materials. 
  • Explore trades between ablatives, ceramics, and other TPS materials. 
  • Lead technical and programmatic architecture for the TPS labs and development timelines. 
  • Work with outside vendors, suppliers, and testing resources to bringing in new materials, capabilities, and processes. 

Required Qualifications: 

  • Bachelor’s degree in Material Science, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Engineering, or Chemical Engineering, or equivalent experience in a relevant field with a minimum of 5+ years of professional experience. 
  • 2+ years of experience working with hypersonic reentry thermal protection systems. 
  • Strong understanding of the fundamentals behind aerothermal heating of reentry vehicles, TPS production, and thermal environments of extreme temperature applications. 
  • Experience using Siemens NX or similar CAD software. 
  • This role is onsite at our Torrance Ca, office.

Desired Qualifications: 

  • Professional experience working with, formulating, or producing ablative TPS. 
  • Experience integrating heatshield materials onto flight vehicles. 

The California annual base salary for this role is currently $130,000-$196,000.  Pay Grades are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data.  Individual pay will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: interviews and an assessment of several factors that are unique to each candidate, job-related skills, relevant education and experience, certifications, abilities of the candidate and internal equity.  

ITAR Compliance:
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.  
 
Equal Employment Opportunity:
Inversion provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, veteran status, or disability.  
 
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