Anduril Industries
Thermal Engineer, Thermal Protection Systems (TPS)
About this role
Anduril Industries seeks a Thermal Engineer specializing in Thermal Protection Systems to design and validate thermal protection for hypersonic and high-speed defense systems. You will conduct aerothermal analysis, ablation modeling, and material selection for extreme flight environments, partnering with cross-functional teams to integrate TPS into advanced platforms.
What you'll do
- Design and own thermal protection systems for hypersonic vehicles, reentry systems, and missiles operating in extreme aerothermal environments
- Perform aerothermal heating analysis using boundary-layer methods, engineering correlations, and CFD to map thermal environments across flight trajectories
- Conduct ablation and material response modeling to predict TPS recession, thermal margins, and structural performance under mission conditions
- Select and evaluate TPS materials including carbon phenolic, PICA, ceramics, and high-temperature composites based on aerothermal loads and mass constraints
- Define and execute thermal characterization tests such as arcjet testing and instrumented flight-article thermal testing
- Support design reviews, failure investigations, and thermal model validation spanning hand calculations through detailed FEA and CFD
What they're looking for
- Aerothermal heating and aerodynamic heating analysis
- Ablation and material response modeling (FIAT, CMA, TITAN, or equivalent)
- High-temperature heat transfer and thermal sciences
- CFD for high-speed reacting flows (DPLR, US3D, ANSYS Fluent, STAR-CCM+)
- High-temperature materials (carbon phenolic, PICA, carbon-carbon, ceramics)
- Thermal analysis and FEA modeling
- MATLAB or Python for trajectory and thermal analysis
- Arcjet testing and thermal instrumentation
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Anduril Industries
Anduril Industries builds autonomous defense systems including underwater vehicles, unmanned aircraft, and electronic warfare platforms for the Department of Defense. The company is hiring across mechanical engineering, mission operations, software development, technical leadership, and advanced manufacturing roles to support the design, deployment, and production of these mission-critical systems.
- Website
- anduril.com
Likely interview questions
- Walk us through your approach to selecting a TPS material for a hypersonic vehicle with competing constraints on mass, thermal margin, and manufacturability.
- Describe your experience with ablation modeling tools and how you've used them to predict in-depth thermal response and material recession.