Senior​/SME Propulsion Engineer – Long-Range Weapons

Senior/SME Propulsion Engineer – Long-Range Weapons

K 's National Security Solutions team provides high-end engineering and advanced technology solutions to our customers in the intelligence and national security communities. In this position, your work will have a profound impact on the country's most critical role – protecting our national security.

Why Join Us?

• Innovative Projects: K 's work is at the forefront of engineering, logistics, operations, science, program management, mission IT and cybersecurity solutions.
• Collaborative Environment:
  Be part of a dynamic team that thrives on collaboration and innovation, fostering a supportive and intellectually stimulating workplace.
• Impactful Work:
  Your contributions will be pivotal in developing and fielding advanced long-range weapon capabilities that ensure national security and strengthen the future joint force.

Position Summary:

K  is seeking a highly experienced Senior to SME-level Propulsion Engineering professional to support a U.S. Government program office developing and fielding advanced long-range weapon systems. This position will provide expert technical and programmatic support across propulsion architecture, design, integration, performance assessment, risk reduction, test, qualification, production transition, and fielding. The ideal candidate possesses deep experience with missile propulsion systems and has supported air-to-air, air-to-ground, or other long-range precision weapon programs through development, integration, test, production, and operational deployment.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior technical advisor to the Government program office on propulsion technologies, architectures, performance, integration, producibility, and technical risk for long-range air-to-air and air-to-ground weapon systems.
• Evaluate contractor propulsion concepts, designs, development plans, technical baselines, performance claims, risk-reduction activities, qualification approaches, and maturation strategies.
• Assess solid rocket motor technologies, including propellant formulations, grain design, case materials, insulation, liners, igniters, nozzles, thrust-vector control, safe-and-arm features, and insensitive-munitions considerations.
• Assess air-breathing and advanced propulsion technologies, as applicable, including ramjet, ducted-rocket, turbine-based, or other propulsion concepts; inlets; combustors; fuel systems; thermal management; and associated controls.
• Evaluate single-stage, dual-pulse, variable-thrust, multi-stage, boost-sustain, and other propulsion architectures against mission performance, range, speed, maneuverability, time-to-target, size, weight, cost, safety, and producibility requirements.
• Assess propulsion performance across representative air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, launch conditions, flight envelopes, engagement geometries, altitude and temperature extremes, storage environments, aging conditions, and operational employment scenarios.
• Support Government evaluation of propulsion requirements, specifications, interface definitions, verification methods, technical performance measures, qualification criteria, and requirements traceability.
• Evaluate propulsion integration with the weapon airframe, guidance and control system, power and thermal systems, ignition and initiation systems, separation hardware, flight-control actuators, launch platform, and carriage and release interfaces.
• Assess contractor modeling, simulation, subscale testing, component testing, static-fire testing, environmental testing, aging and surveillance testing, hardware-in-the-loop activities, flight testing, and live-fire approaches used to verify propulsion performance and safety.
• Analyze propulsion test data, anomalies, failure investigations, root-cause assessments, corrective actions, and technical trade studies; identify implications for weapon performance, safety, cost, schedule, qualification, production, and fielding risk.
• Support technical reviews, design reviews, test readiness reviews, qualification reviews, production readiness reviews, program reviews, source selections, proposal evaluations, and other acquisition activities…