Responsibilities:Strategic Responsibilities
- Lead CFD simulation strategy across Hayward's product portfolio, including residential and commercial pumps, filters, gas heaters, robotic cleaners, salt chlorinators, and electronic control systems.
- Drive simulation-led design from concept through validation, ensuring predictive analysis is embedded early in the product development process to reduce prototype cycles and accelerate time-to-market.
- Mentor and develop simulation and design engineers in CFD methodologies, meshing best practices, turbulence modeling, and test correlation.
- Act as a technical advisor and subject matter expert to engineering leadership, identifying simulation opportunities, influencing product design decisions, and advising on tradeoffs between hydraulic performance, thermal management, manufacturability, and cost.
- Promote consistent, continuous improvement of simulation practices, tools, scripting/automation libraries, and documentation across Hayward's global engineering sites.
- Evaluate and recommend new simulation software and computing infrastructure investments aligned with Hayward's broad product portfolio rather than narrow specialty needs. Technical and Operational Responsibilities
- Develop and execute CFD models for centrifugal pumps and hydraulic components, including impeller and volute/diffuser analysis, multiphase and cavitation prediction, and efficiency optimization.
- Perform conjugate heat transfer (CHT) and reacting-flow simulations for gas heaters, and electronics-cooling analyses for variable-speed drives and control electronics.
- Establish and maintain meshing, turbulence-model, and convergence best practices, including y+ judgment, MRF/sliding mesh setup for rotating machinery, and appropriate use of RANS and (where justified) LES/DES approaches.
- Own the CFD-to-test correlation loop in partnership with the lab team, including identifying root causes of simulation-test discrepancies and refining models accordingly.
- Develop scripting and automation workflows (Python, Java macros) to standardize simulation pipelines, run DOEs and design-optimization studies, and improve team productivity.
- Make effective use of high-performance simulation workstations for transient and large-scale cases.
- Engage in technical design reviews to identify simulation needs, advise project teams on analysis strategies, and contribute to product design decisions, including a working sense of manufacturability and assembly so that simulation-driven design proposals are practical to implement.
- Author and maintain simulation process documentation, procedures, and training materials.
- Collaborate with the FEA, MBD, and 1D system-modeling activities as needed, supporting structural, thermal, NVH, and system-level analyses across the simulation team.
Qualifications:Education
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or Aerospace Engineering. Master's degree preferred. Experience
- 5+ years of industrial CFD experience, ideally with rotating-equipment exposure.
- Proficiency with a commercial CFD solver (Star-CCM+, Ansys Fluent, or CFX).
- Demonstrated expertise in turbulence modeling (RANS, k-ω SST), meshing (structured and unstructured), MRF and sliding-mesh approaches for rotating machinery, conjugate heat transfer, and multiphase / cavitation modeling.
- Experience running CFD on high-performance simulation workstations for transient and large-scale cases.
- Scripting and automation experience (Python preferred; Java macros and MATLAB acceptable).
- Working knowledge of 3D CAD; SolidWorks preferred (NX or Creo acceptable).
- Demonstrated ownership of CFD-to-test correlation, including lab and experimental validation.
- Experience leading or mentoring engineers. Skills and Attributes (Nice to Have)
- Pump and hydraulic turbomachinery domain (strongly relevant): centrifugal pump impeller and volute/diffuser design experience; familiarity with pump-design tools such as AxSTREAM, CFTurbo, BladeGen, or TurboDesign.
- Adjacent product physics: combustion / reacting-flow simulation for gas heaters; electronics-cooling CFD using general-purpose solvers (Star-CCM+ or Fluent).
- Adjacent simulation: FEA - structural and thermal (Ansys Mechanical, Abaqus, or equivalent); MBD for NVH (Adams, Recurdyn, Simpack, or equivalent); FSI (fluid-structure interaction); 1D system modeling (Dymola, AMESim, GT-Suite, Flowmaster, or equivalent).
- Other: awareness of design-for-manufacturing and design-for-assembly principles for high-volume consumer products, sufficient to evaluate the practicality of simulation-driven design proposals; familiarity with relevant standards (Hydraulic Institute for pumps; UL/NSF for pool equipment); experience with open-source CFD (OpenFOAM).
- Strategic thinker with the ability to balance technical rigor and business priorities.
- Exceptional communication and presentation skills; able to convey complex simulation results to design, test, and leadership audiences.
- Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and organizational abilities.
- Collaborative leadership style.
- Willingness to travel occasionally for cross-site collaboration, supplier engagement, or industry conferences. Work Environment
- Involves both office and laboratory work. Indoor and outdoor activities are routine requirements of the job.
- Commonly works around water, mechanical assemblies, and electrical machinery. #LI-LS1
