Senior Thermal Engineer, Rocket Motor Systems

ABOUT THE TEAM

Anduril’s Tactical Recon & Strike (TRS) is a division with two missions: 1) build highly capable autonomous drones, and 2) build solid rocket motors at scale. We transform products like Ghost, Anvil, Bolt, and Altius from early concepts into fully operational capabilities by partnering closely with specialist engineering, operations, and production teams. Through our Anduril Rocket Motor Systems (RMS) team, we design and manufacture solid rocket motors using advanced materials, proprietary formulations, and high-volume production methods—delivering safe, reliable propulsion systems that support a wide range of mission requirements. TRS hires software engineers & hardware engineers, who are excited to build across a diverse and powerful portfolio—from autonomous aerial systems to high-performance solid rocket motors. Our teams contribute to highly capable autonomous robotics systems and propulsion products that operate reliably in the most demanding mission environment.

ABOUT THE JOB

Anduril’s Rocket Motor Systems group is seeking a Senior Thermal Engineer to join our team. The Rocket Motor Systems group designs, develops, and manufactures next-generation solid rocket motors for defense and space applications at Anduril. As a Thermal Engineer you will conduct detailed thermal analysis of solid rocket motor components. The right person for this role has a strong understanding of thermal analysis principles, with expertise in some of the tools common in industry.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Perform detailed thermal analysis of solid rocket motor components.
• Size internal insulation, external thermal protection systems, and structural insulators.
• Validate models with test data; develop predictive ablation and erosion models.
• Define sub-scale tests for characterizing material properties of insulators and ablators.
• Evaluate and recommend ablative materials and thermal protection system solutions for applications in solid rocket motors
• Create reports and presentations documenting analysis and other supporting work.
• Present to peers and customers in design reviews.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• A bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, or similar.
• 8+ years of relevant professional experience.
• Working knowledge of fundamental heat transfer, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics first principles.
• Prior experience operating CAD software and/or FEA software.
• Strong communication skills.
• Ability to travel to other Anduril sites, customer sites, or supplier sites as business demand dictates. Anticipated 10-25% travel.
• Ability to obtain and hold a U.S. Secret Security Clearance.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Advanced degree (master’s or doctorate) in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, or similar with a focus on ablation modeling, computational combustion, or reacting flows.
• Experience with Abaqus FEA software.
• Expertise in engineering tool development in Microsoft Excel, MATLAB, and/or Python.
• Expertise with thermochemical ablation and material response analysis, with an emphasis on ablation in solid rocket motors and/or reentry systems.
• Expertise with ablation modeling tools, such as Hero, CHAR, PATO or similar, and surface chemistry tools, such as ACE or Mutation++