Chief Engineer; Mechanical Engineering

Career Opportunities with Firefly Aerospace

Come be a part of the 21 st Century Space Race!

Careers At Firefly Aerospace

As an end-to-end responsive space company, Firefly Aerospace is on a mission to enable our world to launch, land, and operate in space – anywhere, anytime. Our small- to medium-lift launch vehicles, lunar landers, and orbital vehicles allow us to service the entire lifecycle of government and commercial missions from low Earth orbit to the Moon and beyond. We utilize carbon composite structures, patented propulsion technologies, and common components across our vehicles to iterate quickly, improve reliability, and deliver payloads at a lower cost.

Headquarters in north Austin, Texas, Firefly is seeking passionate, hardworking innovators to join our team and help fuel our successful trajectory into space.

The Mechanical Engineering Chief Engineer (CE) will provide technical leadership for mechanical, architectural, and structural design and analysis of Firefly’s launch vehicle and spacecraft products. This role ensures consistent engineering rigor, sound technical decision-making, and disciplined execution across structures, mechanisms, loads & dynamics, stress analysis, and integrated mechanical systems.

The CE partners closely with the Director of Mechanical Engineering and program leadership to support development, test, production, and flight readiness. The role owns technical decisions, engineering standards, change activity, production support, escalation paths and mentoring engineers – while enabling teams to execute efficiently and independently.

• Serve as technical authority and approver for mechanical hardware decisions, including design changes, ECOs/CRs, and release packages; ensure trades, assumptions, analyses, and test data are technically sound and defensible.
• Lead and arbitrate cross-disciplinary technical trades impacting vehicle performance, reliability, manufacturability, and certification.
• Own mechanical and structural requirements, verification methods, compliance evidence, and acceptance criteria.
• Guide and approve analysis methodologies and reports, including FEA, classical hand calculations, margins philosophy, loads & dynamics, and test correlation.
• Drive hardware development and qualification test definition, standards, and guidelines.
• Provide technical oversight of test operations, including test readiness reviews and evaluation of test plans for thoroughness, quality, and adherence to applicable standards.
• Partner with Manufacturing, Reliability/Quality, and Program teams to resolve integration, build, and production issues and ensure integration-ready hardware.
• Maintain engineering rigor through change activity, NCRs, RCCAs, and anomaly investigations.

• Ensure lessons learned and test findings are incorporated into future standards and designs.
• Drive continuous improvement in engineering quality, reliability, cost, and lead-time.

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to mechanical engineering teams, elevating technical judgment, review readiness, and overall engineering quality.
• Collaborate effectively with other technical and support organizations to optimize workflow and execution across the company.

• B.S. in Aerospace, Mechanical, or related engineering field.
• 10+ years of experience in mechanical and/or structural design, analysis, and qualification for aerospace systems.

• Demonstrated experience owning technical decisions, design reviews, change control, and NCR/RCCA disposition.
• Proven ability to translate complex technical problems into clear, defensible engineering decisions backed by physics, data, and sound judgment.
• Deep understanding of:
  • FEM/FEA and classical hand analysis and verification methods
  • Structural mechanics and load paths
  • Materials and fracture mechanics
  • Loads and Dynamic Analysis and testing
  • Configuration control and compliance evidence

• Working knowledge of composite…