Hydraulic Engineer

Trillium Flow Technologies, founded on a legacy of premier products and services, provides mission-critical valves, pumps, and aftermarket services for core societal infrastructure that includes water and wastewater, power generation including nuclear power, food and beverage, oil and gas equipment and general industry. Trillium is very customer centric to meet specific needs, provides innovative engineering design with a global footprint that is focused on meeting our customers’ original equipment and aftermarket needs.

The Hydraulic Engineer — Centrifugal Pumps at Trillium Flow Technologies is a professional engineering role within the Research & Development department responsible for the hydraulic design, analysis, testing, and performance optimization of centrifugal pump hydraulic components — including impellers, diffusers, bowl assemblies, volutes, and inducers — across Trillium's pump product lines. Trillium serves customers in power generation, oil & gas, water & wastewater, and general industry with highly engineered centrifugal pumps, and this role is the technical owner of internal hydraulic performance for assigned product families.

Greater than 50% of work time is spent on professional hydraulic engineering activities requiring advanced turbo machinery knowledge, independent engineering judgment, and discretionary decision-making consistent with the Learned Professional exemption under FLSA 29 C.F.R. §541.301 and the Professional exemption under California Labor Code §515. The Hydraulic Engineer reports to the R&D Manager and collaborates closely with the Senior Hydraulic Engineer, Mechanical Design Engineers, and R&D Technicians.

This role integrates AI-assisted CFD, pump performance prediction, and hydraulic design optimization tools as standard engineering practice and operates with extreme ownership over all assigned hydraulic deliverables.

• Design centrifugal pump hydraulic components — impellers, diffusers, bowl assemblies, volutes, and inducers — applying turbo machinery design principles including velocity triangles, specific speed (Ns/Nq), head coefficient, flow coefficient, and hydraulic efficiency targets to develop internal geometries that meet pump performance specifications
• Develop and optimize pump performance curves (H-Q, efficiency-Q, power-Q, NPSHr-Q) for assigned pump families; apply design methods to achieve best efficiency point (BEP) targets, flatten the curve for stable operation, and meet head rise-to-shutoff requirements across the operating envelope
• Support the commercial and application engineering teams with technical responses to customer hydraulic queries, pump selection guidance, and bid qualification review for non-standard duty points
• Perform NPSH analysis and cavitation assessment for centrifugal pump designs — calculate NPSH required (NPSHr), evaluate NPSH available (NPSHa) margin per ANSI/HI 9.6.1, assess suction specific speed (Nss), design inducers where required to extend low-NPSH operating range, and apply cavitation erosion mitigation strategies to impeller and inducer geometries
• Execute computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of internal pump hydraulics — impeller passage flow, diffuser/volute pressure recovery, recirculation zones, radial and axial thrust loads — using ANSYS CFX, Fluent, or equivalent; interpret results and translate findings into geometry modifications that improve hydraulic performance
• Apply hydraulic design standards — ANSI/HI 1.1-1.6 (rotodynamic pumps), ANSI/HI 9.6 series (NPSH, vibration, derating), API 610 (centrifugal pumps for petroleum/petrochemical), API 685 (sealless pumps) — as applicable to the pump type and service to establish design requirements and acceptance criteria
• Develop and execute hydraulic performance test plans per ANSI/HI 14.6 (pump test acceptance criteria); participate in factory acceptance testing (FAT) and laboratory performance testing; analyze test data to validate hydraulic model predictions, calculate hydraulic efficiency, and document acceptance against specification tolerances
• Conduct root cause analysis (RCA) on hydraulic performance shortfalls, field…