About this opportunity
Hop Aero lists this Lead Hypersonic Re-Entry Engineer opportunity in orange county, ca, California. Review the employer’s description below for duties, qualifications and application requirements.
Job description
Hop Aero is a venture-backed startup building rockets that deliver cargo anywhere on Earth in minutes. Our mission is to enable resilient global logistics to protect and improve our way of life.
Our founding team has prior experience founding a satellite startup and taking it to orbit, launching 20+ Falcon 9 missions at SpaceX, and leading engineering teams at some of the world’s most advanced aerospace organizations. The company is well-capitalized through venture funding and government contracts.
We’re hiring a Lead Hypersonic Reentry Engineer to own the analysis, design, and development of Hop Aero’s atmospheric reentry capability.
This is a foundational technical role spanning hypersonic aerodynamics, aerothermal environments, thermal protection, trajectory trades, vehicle design, testing, and flight-hardware development. You will help define how our vehicles survive high-speed atmospheric flight and repeated reentry while remaining practical, manufacturable, and rapidly reusable.
You should be comfortable building first-principles models, running CFD, evaluating TPS concepts, working with structures and GNC teams, designing experiments, and using test data to close the loop between simulation and real hardware.
This is not purely a CFD or thermal-analysis role. You will be expected to make vehicle-level engineering decisions, own hardware and test programs, and help take the reentry system from early analysis through flight.
Serve as the responsible engineer for hypersonic reentry, aerothermal environments, and thermal-protection systems
Perform CFD and other high-fidelity analysis for high-speed atmospheric flight
Develop aerodynamic and aerothermal databases for use by GNC, structures, propulsion, and vehicle-design teams
Evaluate and select TPS architectures, materials, coatings, insulation systems, and attachment concepts
Perform coupled aero-thermal-structural analysis to inform vehicle geometry and hardware design
Define and execute material, coupon, component, and subsystem test campaigns
Correlate analytical models with ground-test and flight-test data
Translate reentry environments into requirements for structures, propulsion, avionics, GNC, and vehicle systems
Own hypersonic reentry technical risks through design reviews, test-readiness reviews, and flight-readiness reviews
5-10 years of relevant experience in hypersonics, reentry, high-speed aerodynamics, aerothermal engineering, thermal protection, or closely related fields
~ Strong understanding of compressible flow, hypersonic aerodynamics, heat transfer, boundary layers, shock interactions, and high-temperature gas dynamics
~ Understanding of thermal-protection materials, insulation systems, structural heating, and thermal interfaces
~ Ability to plan experiments, interpret aerodynamic and thermal test data, and correlate models against real measurements
~ Ability to work directly with GNC, structures, propulsion, manufacturing, materials, and test teams
~ Must be a US Person under ITAR - Hop Aero will not sponsor visas for this role.
Experience with arc-jet, plasma, wind-tunnel, shock-tunnel, or other high-enthalpy testing
Experience with ceramic, metallic, ablative, or composite TPS materials
Experience with coupled CFD/FEA or conjugate heat-transfer analysis
Experience developing aerodynamic or aerothermal databases across large flight envelopes
Experience taking reentry hardware from analysis through ground test and flight
Competitive salary and meaningful stock options
Healthcare, office meals & snacks
Who can apply
Review the original listing for work authorization, qualifications and employer requirements.