Hypersonic Reentry Architect — Own the Flight Hardware

Hop Aero; California (MO); On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Healthcare

Office meals & snacks

Direct collaboration with founders

Technical ownership

Career growth

Job summary

Hop Aero in California seeks a Lead Hypersonic Reentry Engineer to own analysis, design and development of atmospheric reentry capability. You will build first-principles models, run CFD, evaluate TPS concepts, work with GNC/structures teams, design experiments, and close the loop with flight data.

You will be responsible for vehicle-level decisions, hardware programs, and taking the reentry system from early analysis through flight, with strong cross-disciplinary collaboration at the Orange, CA

Qualifications

• 5-10 years of relevant experience in hypersonics, reentry, high-speed aerodynamics, aerothermal engineering, thermal protection or related fields.
• Strong understanding of compressible flow, hypersonic aerodynamics, heat transfer, boundary layers, shock interactions, and high-temperature gas dynamics.
• Experience modeling aerodynamic and aerothermal environments for high-speed vehicles.
• Experience with CFD and numerical methods for hypersonic or thermally challenging flows.
• Experience translating analytical results into vehicle-level design decisions.
• Understanding of reentry trajectory trades, vehicle stability, aerodynamic loading, and thermal constraints.
• Understanding of thermal-protection materials, insulation systems, structural heating, and thermal interfaces
• Ability to plan experiments, interpret aerodynamic and thermal test data, and correlate models against real measurements
• Ability to work directly with GNC, structures, propulsion, manufacturing, materials, and test teams
• Willingness to be hands-on with test articles and flight hardware
• Must be a US Person under ITAR - Hop Aero will not sponsor visas for this role.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the responsible engineer for hypersonic reentry, aerothermal environments, and thermal-protection systems.
• Define vehicle aerodynamic and heating environments across hypersonic entry, atmospheric deceleration, and descent.
• Develop first-principles and numerical models for hypersonic aerodynamics, convective heating, radiative heating, and conductive heat transfer.
• Perform CFD and other high-fidelity analysis for high-speed atmospheric flight.
• Develop aerodynamic and aerothermal databases for use by GNC, structures, propulsion, and vehicle-design teams.
• Support trajectory and vehicle-shape trades to balance range, heating, stability, control authority, and structural loads.
• Evaluate and select TPS architectures, materials, coatings, insulation systems, and attachment concepts.
• Perform coupled aero-thermal-structural analysis to inform vehicle geometry and hardware design.
• Assess thermal margins, hot spots, shock interactions, boundary-layer effects, uncertainties, and off-nominal environments.
• Define and execute material, coupon, component, and subsystem test campaigns.
• Work directly with suppliers and manufacturing teams to develop practical, repeatable reentry hardware.
• Correlate analytical models with ground-test and flight-test data.
• Develop instrumentation strategies for temperature, heat flux, pressure, strain, and related diagnostics.
• Support wind-tunnel, arc-jet, high-enthalpy, and flight-test campaigns as applicable.
• Translate reentry environments into requirements for structures, propulsion, avionics, GNC, and vehicle systems.
• Own hypersonic reentry technical risks through design reviews, test-readiness reviews, and flight-readiness reviews.
• Work in person with the team at our shop in Orange, CA.

Skills

Hypersonic aerodynamics

Aerothermal engineering

Thermal protection systems

CFD modeling

Experiment planning

Hardware ownership

GNC interfacing

Job description

Hop Aero in California seeks a Lead Hypersonic Reentry Engineer to own analysis, design and development of atmospheric reentry capability. You will build first-principles models, run CFD, evaluate TPS concepts, work with GNC/structures teams, design experiments, and close the loop with flight data.

You will be responsible for vehicle-level decisions, hardware programs, and taking the reentry system from early analysis through flight, with strong cross-disciplinary collaboration at the Orange, CA