Thermal Engineer, Thermal Protection Systems (TPS)
Anduril · Mountain View, United States +1 · 6d ago
Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.
About the Team
The Thermal Engineering team enables Anduril's rapid hardware development cycle by ensuring advanced defense systems perform reliably in demanding real-world environments. The team works across high-power, tightly integrated products where thermal architecture, analysis, testing, and cross-functional design decisions directly affect product performance, reliability, and mission success.
About the Role
We are looking for a Thermal Engineer specializing in Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) to join our team. In this role, you will own the design, analysis, and validation of thermal protection for hypersonic and high-speed flight systems operating in extreme aerothermal environments.
This role is ideal for someone with deep expertise in aerothermal heating, ablative material response, and high-temperature thermal analysis — someone who can work across first-principles hand calculations, material response modeling, and detailed CFD to guide fast, high-consequence design decisions for systems where thermal survival is the critical constraint.
What You'll Do
- Own TPS design, material selection, and thermal analysis for hypersonic and high-speed flight vehicles, including missiles, reentry systems, and advanced flight platforms.
- Perform aerothermal heating analysis using engineering correlations, boundary-layer methods, and CFD to define the thermal environment across flight trajectories.
- Conduct ablation and material response modeling to predict TPS recession, in-depth thermal response, and structural thermal margins under mission-representative conditions.
- Evaluate and select TPS materials, including carbon phenolic, PICA, silicone-based ablators, ceramics, and high-temperature composites, based on aerothermal loads, mass constraints, and manufacturability.
- Partner with aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, and systems engineers to integrate TPS into vehicle design while managing mass, volume, and performance tradeoffs.
- Define and execute thermal and material characterization tests, including arcjet testing, furnace testing, and instrumented flight-article thermal testing.
- Build and maintain thermal models spanning hand calculations through detailed FEA/CFD to predict system performance, establish design limits, and support qualification.
- Present TPS status, risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations in internal design reviews and customer-facing technical reviews.
- Support failure reviews and root-cause investigations using test data, thermal analysis, and first-principles reasoning.
Required Qualifications
- MS or PhD in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Physics, or a related field with a focus on aerothermodynamics, heat transfer, thermal sciences, or materials science.
- 2+ years of experience in TPS design, aerothermal analysis, or high-temperature material response for aerospace or defense systems.
- Strong first-principles understanding of aerodynamic heating, ablation, high-temperature heat transfer, and material thermal response.
- Experience with material response modeling tools such as FIAT, CMA, TITAN, or equivalent ablation/thermal response codes.
- Experience supporting thermal design for hypersonic vehicles, reentry systems, missiles, rocket nozzles, or other systems operating in extreme aerothermal environments.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with aerothermal CFD tools such as DPLR, US3D, Loci-CHEM, CFD++, ANSYS Fluent, or STAR-CCM+ for high-speed reacting flow analysis.
- Experience with arcjet testing, thermal characterization testing, or flight-article thermal instrumentation.
- Experience with high-temperature materials including carbon phenolic, carbon-carbon, PICA, SLA-561V, silicone-based ablators, or ceramic matrix composites.
- Experience with radiation modeling tools such as NEQAIR, HARA, or equivalent nonequilibrium radiation solvers.
- Experience using MATLAB, Python, or similar tools for trajectory-based heating analysis, thermal margin assessment, or engineering trade studies.
- Familiarity with NASA TPS heritage tools and databases (TPSX, CEA, CBAero).
- Experience supporting PDR/CDR, qualification testing, or flight programs.
- Strong motivation to support Anduril's mission of defending the United States and allied partners.
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:
Benefits
At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.
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