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Director of Engineering, Reentry

Turning Space into a Transportation Layer for Earth

Who We Are:

Eras of humanity can often be defined by a dominant transportation mode - horse drawn carriage, ocean faring boats, or aircraft. These were spurred by a small group of people rigorously focused on building technology to achieve faster access to more of the world.  We seek to usher in a new era of humanity defined by universal access to the whole globe free of borders and the presence of a routine way from space to Earth. To do this, we are building highly maneuverable re-entry vehicles that can loiter in orbit before precision landing back on Earth.   

What You’ll Do:

As the head of Inversion’s Reentry teams, you will spearhead the creation, design, and leadership of Inversion’s products’ reentry systems and vehicles. Inversion’s next-generation spacecraft is capable of operating in space and, on command, reentering anywhere in the world. Inversion’s hypersonic lifting body design will create a highly maneuverable, highly accurate, and low-cost to produce vehicle that will be an industry-first. In this role, you will:

  • Report directly to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
  • Lead technical and programmatic architecture and execution of the Reentry systems on Inversion’s Arc vehicle including Aerodynamics, Thermal Protection Systems (TPS), Primary Structures, and Control Surfaces.
  • Responsible for the architecture definition, simulation-based performance analysis, development of hardware, validation of design, and production of a reentry vehicle.
  • Assemble an incredibly talent-dense team of engineers to design, analyze, build, test, and produce a reentry vehicle.

Required Qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent experience in a relevant field with a minimum of 10+ years of engineering complex systems.
  • Minimum of 4 years of experience in hypersonic, supersonic, reentry, or rocketry flight sciences.
  • Demonstrated success in vehicle design and OML design that culminated in flight testing.
  • Strong knowledge of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), wind tunnel testing, aerothermal analysis, and glide trajectories.
  • Industry leadership experience managing interdisciplinary teams and responsibility over program-level technical decision-making.
  • Strong fundamentals on aerospace-level primary structures requirements and design.
  • Successful track record of taking projects from design through deployment into production.

Desired Qualifications:

  • Master’s degree or PhD in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering, or an equivalent field.
  • Professional experience executing modeling and simulation tools for hypersonic applications.
  • Experience with key aspects of hypersonic system modeling such as: hypersonic boundary layer, heat transfer modeling, ablation, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, chemistry modeling, turbulence, etc.
  • Strong understanding of ablative thermal protection materials, their capabilities, and how to analyze them.

The California annual base salary for this role is currently $175,000-$276,000.  Pay Grades are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data.  Individual pay will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: interviews and an assessment of several factors that are unique to each candidate, job-related skills, relevant education and experience, certifications, abilities of the candidate and internal equity. 

#LI-FH1

 

ITAR Compliance:
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.  
 
Equal Employment Opportunity:
Inversion provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, veteran status, or disability.  
 
Inversion collects and processes personal data in accordance with applicable data protection laws.  If you are a US Job Applicant see the CCPA Privacy Policy Notice for further details.

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