Senior Aerothermal Environments Engineer at inversionspace

Compensation

$137,000 – $193,000/yr

Location: Los Angeles, California
Level: not_specified
Posted: Aug 13, 2026

Description

Inversion is seeking a Senior Aerothermal Environments Engineer to develop and maintain aerothermal environment databases for their reentry vehicles. The role involves creating high-fidelity CFD solutions, applying heating estimation methods, fusing various data sources, and building automated tooling. This position requires strong fundamentals in hypersonic aerodynamics and proficiency in programming languages.

Required Skills

High-Fidelity CFD
Engineering-Level Methods
Test Data
Hypersonic Aerodynamics
Boundary Layer Physics
Convective and Radiative Heat Transfer
Python
Fortran
C++
MATLAB

Additional Information

Required Previous Experiences: 5+ years of experience in hypersonic, supersonic, reentry, or rocketry aerothermodynamic analysis
Experience running high-enthalpy flow solvers (US3D, DPLR, LAURA, Loci-CHEM, or similar)
Experience with handbook and engineering-level heating estimation methods (e.g., Fay-Riddell, Tauber, MINIVER-class tools, or similar correlations)
Preferred Qualifications: Master's or PhD in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering, or an equivalent field
Experience assembling heating estimates from data sources of varying fidelity into an overall database product used to drive vehicle design
Experience with uncertainty quantification and the definition of design margins for aerothermal environments
Experience integrating ground and flight test data into aerothermal vehicle models
Experience with boundary layer transition prediction and its treatment in heating environments
Familiarity with Fidelity Pointwise, Link3D, or equivalent meshing software for generating high-quality meshes
Experience with modeling radiative heating using radiation transport tools
Familiarity with TPS sizing and material response tools (e.g., FIAT, CHAR) as downstream consumers of environments
Experience with high-performance computing environments and large-scale CFD campaign automation
Experience contributing to an aerothermal database effort from a vehicle's early design stages through first flight
Involvement in planning, leading, and/or post-processing wind tunnel or arc-jet test campaigns
Prior experience working in startups and/or small independent teams