Staff Thermal Engineer, Hypersonic Air Vehicles

Anduril Anduril · Defense · Costa Mesa, CA · Hardware Engineering : Mechanical Engineering : Thermal Design

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company focused on transforming military capabilities with advanced technology, including AI and computer vision. This role is for a Staff Thermal Engineer on Hypersonic Air Vehicles, responsible for the full development life cycle of thermal systems, from conceptual design to flight test analysis. The position requires extensive experience in aerospace thermal engineering, CFD/FEA analysis, and MATLAB/Python programming, with a focus on high-speed flight regimes and demanding environments.

What you'd actually do

  1. Thermal design and analysis of unmanned air vehicles at conceptual, preliminary, and detailed design maturities
  2. Define thermal system architectures and material selection strategies for vehicles operating in demanding flight environments
  3. Thermal analysis of flight vehicles using CFD, FEA, and engineering methods
  4. Material response modeling under combined thermal and mechanical loads
  5. Transient thermal analysis for time-varying mission profiles

Skills

Required

  • MS or higher degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Applied Physics with focus on heat transfer and fluid dynamics
  • In-depth understanding of heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and high-temperature environments
  • 15+ years of experience in aerospace thermal engineering on rocket, aircraft, or missile programs
  • Experience with thermal analysis in high-speed flight regimes
  • Thermal analysis experience using CFD (STAR-CCM+, ANSYS Fluent) and/or FEA thermal solvers
  • Experience with thermal-structural coupling
  • Ground testing experience with thermal instrumentation and data acquisition
  • Strong programming skills in MATLAB, Python, or similar for tool development
  • Experience preparing formal documentation
  • CAD experience with SolidWorks or Siemens NX
  • Ability to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance

Nice to have

  • Experience with material response modeling in extreme thermal environments
  • Knowledge of material degradation and surface phenomena under demanding conditions
  • Experience with specialized thermal ground test facilities
  • Experience with chemical kinetics and finite-rate chemistry modeling
  • Flight test experience including instrumentation design and post-flight analysis
  • Experience with thermal-structural analysis codes (NASTRAN, Abaqus, ANSYS Mechanical)
  • Material characterization experience at elevated temperatures
  • Experience with manufacturing and assembly of thermal systems
  • Active U.S. security clearance

What the JD emphasized

  • 15+ years of experience in aerospace thermal engineering on rocket, aircraft, or missile programs
  • Experience with thermal analysis in high-speed flight regimes
  • Ability to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance