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Modeling & Simulation Engineer, Missiles

El Segundo, California, United States

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats. 

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com.

About the Team:

The Modeling & Simulation team builds the simulation capabilities used to design, integrate, test, and validate advanced aerospace and defense systems. We develop physics-based models, simulation environments, and analysis tools that help engineering teams evaluate system behavior, improve designs, and reduce risk before hardware design, integration, test, and fielding.

About the Role:

As a Modeling & Simulation Engineer for Missiles, you will develop, integrate, and validate dynamic and closed-loop simulations for guided weapons, interceptors, missiles, and related flight vehicles. Programs may include ground-launched and air-launched weapons, tactical or strategic missiles, cruise missiles, ballistic systems, interceptors, hypersonic vehicles, and other advanced effectors.

You will work across fast-running trajectory models, 3-DOF and high-fidelity 6-DOF simulations, software-in-the-loop environments, real-time simulations, and hardware-in-the-loop test systems. You will support vehicle design, GNC and seeker integration, system-performance analysis, verification, test planning, preflight prediction, and postflight reconstruction.

Experience in every area below is not expected; candidates with depth in one or more relevant modeling and simulation domains are encouraged to apply.

What You'll Do:

  • Develop, integrate, and maintain 3-DOF and 6-DOF flight and engagement simulations for missile systems and related flight vehicles.

  • Implement and validate equations of motion, coordinate-frame transformations, rigid-body dynamics, numerical integration, kinematics, environmental models, and vehicle-state propagation.

  • Develop or integrate models of aerodynamics, propulsion, mass properties, inertia, actuators, control surfaces, thrust-vector control, navigation sensors, IMUs, GPS, seekers, fuzing, launch and ejection systems, staging, separation events, atmospheres, winds, gravity, targets, and threats as applicable.

  • Integrate guidance algorithms, navigation and estimation functions, autopilots, control laws, seeker and tracker functions, fire-control interfaces, tactical software, embedded flight software, and hardware models into closed-loop simulations.

  • Evaluate trajectory and engagement performance, including launch and intercept envelopes, time of flight, time to intercept, acquisition and handover behavior, miss distance, accuracy, stability, robustness, actuator usage, control margins, navigation error, seeker performance, terminal performance, and degraded or failure modes.

  • Develop error budgets and perform Monte Carlo analysis, sensitivity analysis, uncertainty quantification, covariance analysis, design of experiments, and robustness studies.

  • Support system-design trades involving vehicle configuration, guidance concepts, control architecture, sensor selection, actuator performance, propulsion, aerodynamics, launch conditions, and operational scenarios.

  • Translate system and subsystem requirements into model requirements, simulation cases, performance measures, verification methods, and objective evidence.

  • Integrate models and flight or tactical software into desktop simulation, SIL, SITL, HITL, HWIL, real-time, processor-in-the-loop, and large-scale batch environments as applicable.

  • Support hardware and software integration laboratories, including interface definition, timing analysis, real-time execution, hardware stimulation, test automation, and anomaly investigation.

  • Develop preflight predictions, test scenarios, test points, expected-performance envelopes, and flight or range-test analysis products.

  • Reduce and analyze telemetry, laboratory, ground-test, captive-carry, flight-test, and range data.

  • Perform postflight reconstruction, model correlation, parameter estimation, root-cause analysis, and simulation-to-test discrepancy resolution.

  • Develop and maintain simulation software, reusable model components, model APIs, configuration systems, scenario-generation tools, data pipelines, visualization tools, analysis workflows, and automated regression tests.

  • Produce model documentation, assumptions and limitations, validation evidence, performance reports, engineering-review material, and customer or program deliverables.

Required Qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, physics, applied mathematics, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent demonstrated expertise.

  • Relevant experience in missile or flight-vehicle modeling and simulation, flight dynamics, GNC, trajectory analysis, weapon-system performance, or a closely related field.

  • Hands-on experience developing, integrating, or using 3-DOF or 6-DOF dynamic simulations.

  • Strong fundamentals in flight mechanics, rigid-body dynamics, coordinate systems and transformations, numerical integration, control or estimation concepts, and dynamic-system analysis.

  • Demonstrated depth in at least one relevant missile modeling area, such as flight dynamics and vehicle modeling; guidance-law development or analysis; flight-control, autopilot, or control-system modeling; navigation, estimation, or multisensor integration; trajectory optimization or weapon-system performance analysis; seeker, tracker, fire-control, or terminal-engagement integration; or real-time simulation, HITL, or HWIL.

  • Strong programming ability in at least one scientific or analytical environment such as MATLAB, Python, or C++.

  • Experience performing Monte Carlo analysis, error-budget analysis, sensitivity analysis, robustness analysis, uncertainty quantification, or design of experiments.

  • Experience validating or correlating dynamic models against analytical references, subsystem-test data, laboratory data, ground-test data, telemetry, flight-test data, range data, or other authoritative sources.

  • Experience working with system requirements, subsystem interfaces, test objectives, verification methods, and performance criteria.

  • Experience with Git, code review, automated testing, issue tracking, continuous integration, and reproducible software or analysis workflows.

  • Ability to work independently, make sound technical judgments, document assumptions and limitations clearly, and collaborate across engineering disciplines.

  • Active Secret clearance.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Master’s degree or higher in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, applied mathematics, or a related field.

  • Experience with tactical missiles, strategic missiles, ballistic systems, interceptors, cruise missiles, air-launched weapons, ground-launched weapons, hypersonic vehicles, launch vehicles, or other advanced guided flight systems.

  • Experience designing, tuning, or evaluating guidance laws, autopilots, control laws, state estimators, Kalman filters, or multisensor navigation systems.

  • Experience with classical, modern, robust, optimal, adaptive, or nonlinear control methods.

  • Experience with trajectory optimization, optimal control, multidisciplinary design optimization, launch-zone analysis, intercept analysis, or engageability analysis.

  • Experience creating or integrating aerodynamic databases, propulsion models, boost-phase models, thrust-vector-control models, staging or separation models, and mass-property models.

  • Experience integrating RF, EO/IR, multimode, passive, or other seeker and target-tracking models.

  • Experience with fire-control, weapon-target assignment, target-state estimation, fuzing, lethality, or endgame-performance models.

  • Experience integrating embedded flight software, tactical software, auto-generated code, or processor-representative software into closed-loop simulations.

  • Experience supporting flight-test planning, range operations, telemetry analysis, preflight prediction, postflight reconstruction, or flight-anomaly resolution.

  • Experience with large-scale or high-performance Monte Carlo execution, parallel simulation, cloud or cluster execution, or simulation campaign orchestration.

  • Experience with MBSE, model-based development, requirements traceability, formal V&V, verification evidence, or simulation-credibility assessments.

  • Experience supporting DoD, DARPA, AFRL, ONR, MDA, NAVAIR, DEVCOM, intelligence-community, or advanced aerospace programs.

  • Active or eligible to obtain and maintain a Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance.

 

Why CHAOS?

  • Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
  • Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
  • Our Perks: Free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
  • Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses
  • Team Growth: 250 employees and counting across 5 global offices
Salary Range: $140,000 - $190,000

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. 

Recruiting Agencies: CHAOS Industries does not accept unsolicited resumes or outreach. Unsolicited submissions will not be reviewed or compensated.

 

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