Mechanical Engineer III​/IV; Innovation Lab

About Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Aerospace is a space and defense technology company on a mission to reliably and repeatedly launch, land, and operate space systems from Earth to the Moon and beyond. As the partner of choice for critical space missions, Firefly is the only commercial company to launch a satellite to orbit with 24-hour notice and the only company to achieve a successful Moon landing.

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

The Gloworks Innovation team is located within the Firefly CTO office and seeks to advance novel technology to TRL>5 so that it can be deployed to Engineering, as well as owns small technology and vehicle programs that fall beyond the scope of the Elytra, Blue Ghost, Alpha, and Eclipse program focus.

Firefly is looking for experienced spacecraft and launch vehicle structures engineers to work within our Gloworks Innovation team, developing novel technology and unique mission scopes. Focus will be on advancing the state-of-the-art of technology for launch, orbital, lunar, and interplanetary missions. You will be part of a small, lean, highly skilled, dynamic team that will involve you in all aspects of analysis, design, fabrication, and testing.

Excellent collaboration and communication skills, along with a positive attitude are critical.

• Total hardware ownership within a lean, scrum-based environment.
• Gloworks engineers own the entire hardware design cycle including conceptual design, structural layout, sizing analysis, production, and testing.
• Design and development of composite and metallic structures and mechanisms for development, orbital, lunar, or interplanetary spacecraft.
• Supporting production teams with onsite review and verification as well as providing timely closure of non-conformance dispositions.
• Support configuration development and trade studies for future spacecraft missions.
• Maintain requirements compliance and verification, hardware delivery schedule, mass budgets and inter-system collaboration activities.
• Create CAD, manufacturing drawings, specifications, analysis reports, test plans and reports.
• Perform first order strength and sizing calculations for your structure, working alongside stress and dynamics analysts to document critical strength capabilities.

• B.S. degree in aerospace, mechanical, or civil engineering and 5+ years of experience in aerospace or related structures engineering.
• Strong design and integration skills using 3-D CAD software (Siemens NX / Fiber Sim preferable).
• Strong understanding of ASME Y14.5 and drafting techniques for component and assembly specifications.
• Ability to effectively work in a multi-discipline team and provide technical guidance and insight.

• M.S. degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering and/or 7+ years of experience.
• Working knowledge of composite manufacturing methods, material selection, testing, and characterization.
• Experience with FEA/FEM tools like Nastran, ANSYS, FEMAP, Simcenter, etc.
• Experience with composite materials and sandwich construction techniques
• Experience with vehicle level static and vibroacoustic testing.
• Familiarity with aerospace structural analysis methods (Bruhn, Niu, Roark, etc).

Firefly offers outstanding benefits for our employees, including generous health, dental and vision plans with low plan deductibles, parental leave, educational reimbursement, short term disability, and flexible PTO options.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Firefly is governed based on merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status