About the Role

This is a single, deliberately broad opening. We are hiring engineers who can move fluidly across the design, build, test, and manufacturing loop. Rather than slotting you into a narrow specialty, we want to understand where you are strongest and where you want to grow. With fewer than a dozen people on the team, every engineer owns real hardware end to end and sees their work run on a test stand, not just live in a model.

Where You Might Fit

We are actively hiring across three core areas of expertise. Strong candidates anchor in one and contribute meaningfully in the others:

• Combustion & Fluids: Combustor and fuel-system design, fuel atomization and mixing, ignition and relight behavior, internal and secondary flows, convective and radiative heat transfer, and the thermal-fluid trades that set component performance.
• Analysis: Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), thermal and structural finite-element analysis (FEA), and system- or cycle-level modeling - building the predictive models that drive design decisions and connecting them back to test data.
• Detailed Design: Translating concepts into manufacturable hardware: component and assembly modeling, tolerance stack-ups, GD&T, design for manufacturability, and release-ready drawing and specification packages.

You don't need to check every box across all three areas - depth in one, paired with curiosity and competence in the others, is exactly what we're after.

Responsibilities

• Own components and systems from concept through detailed design, analysis, build, and test.
• Build and run the analysis (CFD, thermal/structural FEA, or system-level models) that guides design decisions, and defend your assumptions.
• Produce manufacturing-ready outputs - drawing packages, GD&T, tolerance stack-ups, and specifications that the shop and our suppliers can build from.
• Get hands-on in the shop and on the test stand: assemble hardware, instrument it, run tests, and reduce the data yourself.
• Close the loop between prediction and measurement - iterate quickly and feed test results back into the next design.
• Wear multiple hats. Collaborate across disciplines and pick up whatever the program needs, because in a team this small the boundaries between roles are intentionally loose.

Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in mechanical, aerospace, or a closely related engineering discipline - or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Strong command of the fundamentals: thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and mechanics of materials.
• Proficiency with SolidWorks for CAD and ANSYS for analysis (or directly comparable tools), with depth in at least one analysis domain - CFD, FEA, or system/cycle modeling.
• Genuinely hands-on - comfortable building, instrumenting, and testing real hardware.
• A bias for action, ownership, and comfort with ambiguity in an early-stage environment.
• Clear technical communication and the instinct to back claims with data rather than assertion.
• Fluent with modern AI tools and able to use them to move faster - while staying appropriately skeptical: you verify what they produce, understand where they break down, and never let them substitute for your own engineering judgment.

Preferred Skills

• Turbomachinery, rotating machinery, or propulsion-system experience.
• Combustion, fuel systems, atomization, or reacting-flow modeling.
• Rotordynamics, structural dynamics, vibration, or fatigue/life analysis.
• High-temp materials and processes - casting, brazing, additive, and precision machining.
• Test-stand design, data acquisition, and instrumentation.
• Design for manufacturability of precision machined and cast components; GD&T
• Scripting and automation (e.g., Python) for analysis pipelines and data reduction.

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation for this role is based on a range of factors including experience, education, critical skills, and business considerations. Actual offers may vary. Where a salary range is displayed, it reflects an estimate only. Highly competitive equity grants are included in most full-time offers.

We offer comprehensive benefits for full-time employees, including:

• Premium Healthcare Coverage: 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your eligible dependents
• Complete Protection: Full company-paid life insurance, short-term disability, and long-term disability coverage
• Flexible Time Off: Open PTO policy plus 13 paid company holidays
• Family Support: 8 weeks of paid parental leave and comprehensive leave options
• Wellness Resources: Access to mental health services, Employee Assistance Program, and financial coaching
• Pre-Tax Benefits: Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), Health Savings Accounts (HSA), and commuter benefits
• Professional Growth: Development opportunities including mentorship and skill development
• Retirement Planning: 401(k) plan with company matching

The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.

You'll thrive here if you:

• Own problems the moment you see them and drive them to resolution regardless of whose area they touch
• Lead by example at every level, and check your ego at the door. The best idea wins, full stop
• Can prioritize ruthlessly when the list is longer than the day
• Believe that discipline and rigor are what create the freedom to move fast - not obstacles to it

Joining a company this early is not for everyone. And the people who do their best work here tend to know exactly why they want it.

What makes it exceptional: you won't be maintaining someone else's legacy. You'll help define the architecture from first principles, follow your work all the way to fielded hardware. You will operate with almost no layers between an idea and a decision. Real breadth, real ownership, real stakes.

What's genuinely hard: ambiguity is the default, the intensity is real, and it carries startup risk. You'll often build the process before you can build the thing. Priorities shift as we learn. If that tradeoff sounds like exactly what you've been looking for, we want to hear from you.