Propulsion Engineer — Flight-Test & Vehicle Integration (Equity)

Tiberius Aerospace Inc.; California; On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity participation

Comprehensive health benefits

401(k)

Job summary

Tiberius Aerospace is seeking a hands-on Propulsion Engineer to develop, integrate, test, and qualify propulsion systems for advanced air vehicles and precision-strike programs in Orange County, CA. You will oversee architecture, integration, ground and flight testing, and production transitions across solid, liquid, and hybrid propulsion technologies.

The role requires 3+ years in propulsion, strong fundamentals, and hands-on testing experience. U.S.

Qualifications

• B.S. or higher in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 3+ years of relevant propulsion-development, integration, or test experience.
• Strong foundation in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, combustion, compressible flow, or propulsion fundamentals.
• Experience developing or testing propulsion hardware.
• Ability to perform first-principles calculations and use analytical models to guide design decisions.
• Experience working with instrumentation, data acquisition, and propulsion test data.
• Familiarity with CAD, engineering drawings, and mechanical hardware integration.
• Experience supporting root-cause analysis and hardware troubleshooting.
• Ability to work safely around energetic, pressurized, high-temperature, or other hazardous systems.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Develop propulsion architectures and subsystem concepts for advanced air vehicles and precision-strike systems.
• Perform first-principles calculations and numerical analysis to evaluate propulsion-system performance.
• Develop performance models covering thrust, impulse, mass flow, combustion, pressure, temperature, efficiency, and mission-level propulsion requirements.
• Conduct design trades balancing vehicle performance, mass, packaging, manufacturability, reliability, cost, and schedule.
• Define propulsion requirements and subsystem interfaces.
• Design or support the design of propulsion components, interfaces, mounts, feed systems, ignition hardware, thermal systems, valves, nozzles, and associated hardware.
• Evaluate propulsion performance across operational conditions and mission envelopes.
• Support material selection and thermal-management decisions for high-temperature environments.
• Integrate propulsion systems into complete flight vehicles.
• Work with Mechanical, Structures, Aerodynamics, GNC, Electrical, and Systems teams to resolve propulsion interfaces.
• Define mechanical, electrical, thermal, software, and control interfaces.
• Evaluate propulsion effects on vehicle mass properties, loads, aerodynamics, control authority, thermal environment, and overall mission performance.
• Support packaging, access, maintainability, and integration decisions.
• Participate in system-level design reviews and vehicle trade studies.
• Develop propulsion development, verification, and qualification test plans.
• Design or support test fixtures, instrumentation, fluid systems, data acquisition, and test infrastructure.
• Lead or support component, subsystem, static-fire, environmental, and integrated-system testing.
• Analyze pressure, temperature, thrust, vibration, flow, combustion, and other test data.
• Correlate analytical models against test results.
• Investigate anomalous test results and hardware failures.
• Conduct root-cause analysis and implement corrective actions.
• Support flight-test campaigns and analyze propulsion performance from telemetry.

Skills

Propulsion hardware experience

First-principles calculations

Instrumentation & data acquisition

CAD & drawings

Thermodynamics

Communications skills

Security clearance eligible

U.S. citizenship

Education

B.S. in aerospace or related

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

CAD software

MATLAB/Python

Job description

Tiberius Aerospace is seeking a hands-on Propulsion Engineer to develop, integrate, test, and qualify propulsion systems for advanced air vehicles and precision-strike programs in Orange County, CA. You will oversee architecture, integration, ground and flight testing, and production transitions across solid, liquid, and hybrid propulsion technologies.

The role requires 3+ years in propulsion, strong fundamentals, and hands-on testing experience. U.S.