Senior Propulsion Valve Design Engineer

Firefly Aerospace; Cedar Park (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance and benefits package

Parental leave

Educational reimbursement

Short term disability

Flexible PTO

Job summary

Firefly Aerospace in Texas is seeking an experienced Senior Valve/Fluid Systems Engineer to lead design, analysis, and qualification of propulsion components for Alpha, Eclipse, Blue Ghost, and Elytra programs. The role covers end-to-end responsibilities from concept through production support.

The ideal candidate has 8+ years in valve/fluid systems, strong fundamentals, and a track record of cross-functional collaboration in a fast-paced aerospace environment.

Qualifications

• BS in Aerospace Engineering or related field.
• 8+ years of valve or fluid system design experience.
• Strong fundamentals in fluid mechanics, heat transfer, structural analysis.
• Understanding of valve design, instrumentation, and fluid fittings.
• Ability to manage complex projects and work in a fast-paced team.
• Interest in advancing ‘newspace’.
• Self-motivated with minimum direction.
• Ability to develop economical solutions.

Responsibilities

• Demonstrate extreme ownership of hardware.
• Conceptualize, design, develop and deliver propulsion components to high performance systems.
• Own development lifecycle and provide production support as the technical expert.
• Own a combination of Firefly developed and COTS valves, regulators and actuators.
• Prepare content for and lead CoDRs, MRR, PDRs, TRRs, data reviews and CDRs.
• Author and execute qualification, and acceptance test plans with hands on hardware problem solving.
• Work to standardize solutions across programs and product lines.
• Improve mission cadence by identifying and implementing cost saving and risk reduction measures.
• Lead cross-functional teams of analysts, manufacturing engineers, quality engineers, supply chain representatives, and test engineers to deliver tested hardware on time.
• Resolve non-conformances and implement design changes to improve product yield and manufacturability
• Work with the program teams to develop hardware upgrades in alignment with ambitious performance and cost goals
• Develop simulation-based design methods and validate using subscale and full-scale testing
• Lead failure investigations to determine root cause and implement mitigations
• Qualify existing and new product lines following guidance from SMC‑S‑016 and S‑080 as applicable
• Manage multiple projects and competing priorities

Skills

Valve design experience

Fluid systems analysis

Analytical modeling

Project management

Cross-functional teamwork

Education

BS in Aerospace Engineering

Tools

FEA

CFD

Job description

Firefly Aerospace in Texas is seeking an experienced Senior Valve/Fluid Systems Engineer to lead design, analysis, and qualification of propulsion components for Alpha, Eclipse, Blue Ghost, and Elytra programs. The role covers end-to-end responsibilities from concept through production support.

The ideal candidate has 8+ years in valve/fluid systems, strong fundamentals, and a track record of cross-functional collaboration in a fast-paced aerospace environment.