Lead Propulsion Engineer, Thruster Systems

Blue Origin; Washington; Sur place; USD 170 000 - 210 000; Plein temps

Résumé du poste

Blue Origin in the Greater Seattle Area is seeking a Principal Propulsion Engineer to lead design, analysis, and testing of thrusters and propulsion devices, with hands-on contribution from injector and chamber work and collaboration across systems teams.

The role emphasizes mentoring engineers, driving hot-fire campaigns, and delivering designs that meet performance and reliability goals for spaceflight applications.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in liquid rocket engine or spacecraft thruster development.
• Hands-on experience designing and analyzing injectors and thrust chambers, including performance, combustion stability, and thermal analysis.
• Experience planning, conducting, and analyzing results from hot-fire testing of liquid propulsion hardware.
• Solid understanding of propellant valves (solenoid, pneumatically actuated, or similar) and how valve characteristics affect ignition, start and shutdown transients, pulsing performance, and overall thruster behavior.
• Experience supporting technical failure investigations and implementing design corrections.
• Ability to work across disciplines and make sound technical decisions with incomplete information.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with experience mentoring other engineers.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Responsabilités

• Design, analyze, and develop thruster combustion devices, including injectors and chambers, with a focus on performance, combustion stability, and thermal behavior.
• Contribute to thruster-level design work that integrates combustion devices, propellant valves, feed system interfaces, and drive electronics.
• Perform and review performance, stability, thermal, and transient analyses, and correlate results with test data to improve designs.
• Develop a working understanding of valve capabilities and limitations (response time, flow characteristics, leakage, actuation type, and operating environment) and partner with the valve engineers on requirement and interface definition.
• Plan and support thruster hot-fire test campaigns, including test article definition, instrumentation, test execution, and data review.
• Investigate anomalies and failures from root cause through corrective action, applying first-principles analysis.
• Drive engineering trade studies with sound analysis and clear recommendations.
• Develop and improve analysis tools and practices, such as performance and stability codes, hot-fire data trending, and data reduction and plotting tools.
• Mentor and coach engineers on injector and chamber design, analysis, hot-fire testing, and data review.
• Collaborate with systems, vehicle, electrical, software, manufacturing, and test operations teams to define interfaces and resolve integration issues early.
• Identify technical risks early and communicate them clearly to your team and leadership.
• Author and review technical reports, test plans, qualification documentation, and engineering specifications

Connaissances

Injectors and chambers design &分析

Liquid rocket engine development

Hot-fire testing

Propellant valves understanding

Root cause analysis

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Communication & mentoring

U.S. citizen or eligible

Formation

B.S. or higher in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering or related field

Outils

ROCCID

TDK

NASA CEA

ROCETS

Creo

Python

Description du poste

Blue Origin in the Greater Seattle Area is seeking a Principal Propulsion Engineer to lead design, analysis, and testing of thrusters and propulsion devices, with hands-on contribution from injector and chamber work and collaboration across systems teams.

The role emphasizes mentoring engineers, driving hot-fire campaigns, and delivering designs that meet performance and reliability goals for spaceflight applications.