Senior Dynamics and Loads Engineer

Senior Dynamics and Loads Engineer

Location:

Playa Vista, California (in-person, five days per week)

The return lane isn  going to build itself. Come build it with us.

Outpost is an orbital logistics company rewriting the rules of global logistics by building reusable Earth-return vehicles that unlock in-space manufacturing, on-orbit warehousing, and 60-minute global delivery through space.

Our Carry All vehicle family returns payloads ranging from 200 kilograms to 10 metric tons, lands within 10 meters of its target, and can then be refurbished and launched again. One vehicle, many missions: responsive logistics and precision delivery for national security; commercial cargo moved with real cadence; R&D payloads flown, tested, and refined across repeatable cycles; and critical aid delivered where roads and runways can  reach.

The demand is already here, validated through defense and civil agreements and supported by a growing pipeline of government and commercial customers.

We have the customers, the team, and a clear technical path ahead of us. We  building the return lane. Come build it with us.

The Role

The Senior Dynamics and Loads Engineer will own the development of loads, structural dynamics, and multibody dynamics analyses for Outpost's Carry All. Unlike traditional space vehicle roles where the structure simply needs to survive launch, Carry All has to survive the round trip, and then do it again: launch, separation, heat shield deployment, hypersonic reentry, descent, and landing, followed by refurbishment and reflight.

You  work across vehicle architecture, structures, mechanisms, and test to define the critical dynamic environments that size the vehicle, mature structural and deployment system designs, and validate vehicle performance through analysis and hardware correlation. This is a unique opportunity to shape the dynamic behavior of a new reusable vehicle from early concept through qualification and production.

Responsibilities

• Own development of vehicle loads, structural dynamics, and multibody dynamics analyses from early architecture through hardware realization.

• Define and mature environmental load cases and dynamic environments across the full mission, including launch, separation, heat shield deployment, reentry, landing, and other transient events.

• Partner closely with hardware responsible engineers to translate dynamic analysis results into design requirements, sizing inputs, interface loads, and architecture decisions.

• Support development of structural dynamics models, including modal characterization, transient response, and dynamic load prediction for flight hardware.

• Drive dynamic trade studies to evaluate mechanism architecture, deployment performance, structural response, and system sensitivity under uncertain and evolving design conditions.

• Develop multi-mission load spectra and support fatigue and durability assessments that define refurbishment intervals and reflight limits.

• Help define test objectives, instrumentation needs, and correlation plans for mechanism, structural, and dynamic development tests.

• Correlate simulation results to test and flight data and refine models, assumptions, and design recommendations based on hardware learnings.

• Present analysis progress, technical risks, and recommended paths forward in design reviews and cross-functional program forums.

• Operate effectively in a fast-paced, ambiguous development environment, balancing model fidelity, engineering judgment, and schedule needs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Mechanics, or a related field.

• 5+ years of professional experience in loads, structural dynamics, multibody dynamics, or related analysis for aerospace, defense, or similarly demanding applications.

• Strong fundamentals in rigid-body dynamics, structural dynamics, vibration, transient response, and mechanical system behavior.

• Experience defining, evaluating, and testing mechanical loads and dynamic environments for flight hardware or other high-consequence systems including vibe and shock

• Experience with coupled loads analysis (CLA) with launch vehicle providers including Craig-Bampton methods.

• Experience with finite element analysis tools such as ANSYS, Abaqus, NASTRAN, FEMAP, or equivalent, with emphasis on modal, transient, and dynamic structural analysis.

• Experience with multibody dynamics tools such as ANSYS Motion, Adams, Recur Dyn, Simpack, MATLAB/Simulink, or similar.

• Demonstrated ability to work…