Aerospace Thermal Engineer — Space Infrastructure | Austin, TX; On-site
Job in
Austin, Travis County, Texas, 78716, USA
Listed on 2026-09-17
Listing for:
zella-group
Full Time
position Listed on 2026-09-17
Job specializations:
-
Engineering
Aerospace / Aviation / Avionics, Mechanical Engineer, Systems Engineer, Structural Engineer
Job Description & How to Apply Below
Aerospace Structures & Thermal Engineer - Space Infrastructure | Austin, TX (On-site)
Client is a 12-person space infrastructure company building autonomous bio-factories in orbit - producing advanced materials and enabling drug discovery impossible on Earth. Two satellites launched, NASA Tech Leap Prize winner, 8 more missions planned over the next two years. $30M funded, Series A incoming.
You'll own structural and thermal design end-to-end on their next generation of spacecraft. The critical question is yours to answer: will this vehicle survive?
What you'll do- Design primary structures, load paths, internal supports, and hard points; lead mass reduction efforts
- Perform FEA, thermal modeling, and margin calculations using ANSYS to validate flight hardware
- Select and evaluate materials - composites, ablatives, thermal barrier systems - for extreme environments
- Develop and execute qualification test plans covering structural, thermal, vibration, and environmental testing
- Collaborate closely with GNC, systems engineering, and manufacturing teams through to flight
ANSYS, Nastran, Abaqus, Python, MATLAB, CAD
Strong fit if you have:- 3-8 years aerospace structures and/or thermal engineering with hands-on flight hardware experience
- Personally designed hardware that flew - spacecraft, launch vehicle, reentry system, missile, or hypersonics; must be able to describe specific subsystem ownership in technical detail
- Experience in high-temperature environments where thermal management was a primary design constraint
- Background in composite structures, ablative materials, or thermal protection systems
- BS or higher in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Physics
- Full-time, 5 days on-site in Austin TX
- $150K-$180K depending on experience + competitive equity
- Must be a U.S. Person (citizen or permanent resident); no visa sponsorship
- Cannot describe specific hardware they personally designed - peripheral contributors to large programs are not a fit
- Pure analysts with no hardware design or build experience
- Legacy aerospace prime backgrounds with low ownership, slow-cadence program experience
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