Modeling & Simulation Engineer, Missiles

chaosindustries; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

CHAOS Industries in Los Angeles area seeks a Modeling & Simulation Engineer for Missiles. You will develop and validate dynamic, closed-loop simulations for guided weapons, interceptors, and related flight vehicles. Work spans 3-DOF/6-DOF models, real-time and SIL/HITL environments, and integrated software and hardware testing.

Qualifications

• Experience developing flight/engagement simulations.
• Familiarity with multibody dynamics and accuracy requirements.
• Experience with real-time or hardware-in-the-loop simulations is a plus.
• Ability to translate system requirements into simulation models.

Responsibilities

• Develop, integrate, and maintain 3-DOF and 6-DOF flight and engagement simulations for missiles and related vehicles.
• Implement equations of motion, coordinate-frame transformations, and numerical integration.
• Model aerodynamics, propulsion, inertia, sensors, seekers, and warhead interfaces as applicable.
• Integrate guidance, navigation, and control algorithms into closed-loop simulations.
• Evaluate trajectory performance, robustness, and margin under varied scenarios.
• Support hardware/software integration labs and validation campaigns.

Skills

Flight simulations

Equations of motion

Monte Carlo analysis

Uncertainty quantification

Trajectory modeling

Guidance concepts

Education

Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering

Job description

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage-domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats.

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com .

About the Team:

The Modeling & Simulation team builds the simulation capabilities used to design, integrate, test, and validate advanced aerospace and defense systems. We develop physics-based models, simulation environments, and analysis tools that help engineering teams evaluate system behavior, improve designs, and reduce risk before hardware design, integration, test, and fielding.

About the Role:

As a Modeling & Simulation Engineer for Missiles, you will develop, integrate, and validate dynamic and closed-loop simulations for guided weapons, interceptors, missiles, and related flight vehicles. Programs may include ground-launched and air-launched weapons, tactical or strategic missiles, cruise missiles, ballistic systems, interceptors, hypersonic vehicles, and other advanced effectors.

You will work across fast-running trajectory models, 3-DOF and high-fidelity 6-DOF simulations, software-in-the-loop environments, real-time simulations, and hardware-in-the-loop test systems. You will support vehicle design, GNC and seeker integration, system-performance analysis, verification, test planning, preflight prediction, and postflight reconstruction.

Experience in every area below is not expected; candidates with depth in one or more relevant modeling and simulation domains are encouraged to apply.

What You'll Do:

Develop, integrate, and maintain 3-DOF and 6-DOF flight and engagement simulations for missile systems and related flight vehicles.

Implement and validate equations of motion, coordinate-frame transformations, rigid-body dynamics, numerical integration, kinematics, environmental models, and vehicle-state propagation.

Develop or integrate models of aerodynamics, propulsion, mass properties, inertia, actuators, control surfaces, thrust-vector control, navigation sensors, IMUs, GPS, seekers, fuzing, launch and ejection systems, staging, separation events, atmospheres, winds, gravity, targets, and threats as applicable.

Integrate guidance algorithms, navigation and estimation functions, autopilots, control laws, seeker and tracker functions, fire-control interfaces, tactical software, embedded flight software, and hardware models into closed-loop simulations.

Evaluate trajectory and engagement performance, including launch and intercept envelopes, time of flight, time to intercept, acquisition and handover behavior, miss distance, accuracy, stability, robustness, actuator usage, control margins, navigation error, seeker performance, terminal performance, and degraded or failure modes.

Develop error budgets and perform Monte Carlo analysis, sensitivity analysis, uncertainty quantification, covariance analysis, design of experiments, and robustness studies.

Support system-design trades involving vehicle configuration, guidance concepts, control architecture, sensor selection, actuator performance, propulsion, aerodynamics, launch conditions, and operational scenarios.

Translate system and subsystem requirements into model requirements, simulation cases, performance measures, verification methods, and objective evidence.

Integrate models and flight or tactical software into desktop simulation, SIL, SITL, HITL, HWIL, real-time, processor-in-the-loop, and large-scale batch environments as applicable.

Support hardware and software integration laboratories, including interface definition, timing analysis, real-time execution, hardware stimulation, test automation, and anomaly investigation.

Develop preflight predictions, test scenarios, test points, expected-performance envelopes, and flight or range-test analysis products.

Reduce and analyze telemetry, laboratory, ground-test, captive-carry, flight-test, and range data.

Perform postflight reconstruction, model correlation, parameter estimation, root-cause analysis, and simulation-to-test discrepancy resolution.

Develop and maintain simulation software, reusable model components, model APIs, configuration systems, scenario-generation tools, data pipelines, visualization tools, analysis workflows, and automated regression tests.

Produce model documentation, assumptions and limitations, validation evidence, performance reports, engineering-review material, and customer or program deliverables.

Required Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, mechan