Engine Responsible Engineer
Long Beach, CA$135k - $200kFull-timePosted 2mo ago
About the role
Senior, hands-on technical leadership role owning end-to-end development of a large liquid-oxygen/liquid-hydrogen rocket engine system, from architecture through flight, including fluid systems, turbomachinery, instrumentation, testing, and launch operations.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the Responsible Engineer and primary technical owner for the main engine from development through qualification and flight.
- Establish and continuously refine the engine development strategy, technical priorities, test progression, and criteria for advancing between program phases.
- Maintain a system-level understanding of the complete engine, including combustion devices, turbomachinery, valves, ignition, tubing, instrumentation, controls, and thermal management.
- Identify the engine program’s most important technical risks and develop focused analysis and test plans to retire them.
- Make technical trades across performance, mass, reliability, schedule, cost, manufacturability, operability, and test risk.
- Provide clear technical direction to engineers, technicians, suppliers, and partner teams contributing to the engine.
- Communicate engine status, risks, test results, decisions, and resource needs to company leadership.
- Create and own projects that improve the team’s technical capability, development speed, and collective efficiency.
- Own engine-level fluid schematics, P&IDs, pressure budgets, operating states, and interface documentation.
- Own the design and integration of engine tubing and plumbing systems.
- Define tubing requirements for sizing, routing, pressure drop, thermal contraction, flexibility, vibration, supports, joints, cleanliness, inspectability, manufacturability, assembly, and serviceability.
- Define and maintain engine interfaces with propellant tanks, vehicle feed systems, pressurization systems, ground-support equipment, and test infrastructure.
- Review fluid-system analyses involving pressure loss, flow distribution, chilldown, cavitation margin, two-phase behavior, thermal conditioning, and transient response.
- Ensure the physical engine configuration reflects released P&IDs, analyses, procedures, and test configuration.
- Apply engineering fundamentals to solve engine-development problems in fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, combustion, and structural mechanics.
- Define engine operating envelopes, performance requirements, startup/shutdown sequences, conditioning procedures, redlines, and abort criteria.
- Lead or review engine-system analyses, simulations, and trade studies.
- Support subsystem troubleshooting and investigations involving combustion devices, turbomachinery, valves, heat exchangers, instrumentation, ignition systems, and controls.
- Partner with avionics, vehicle, structures, thermal, manufacturing, and test teams to investigate cross-functional technical issues.
- Translate test results and operational experience into improved designs, models, procedures, and requirements.
- Define and own test campaigns for engine and propulsion-system articles; write/test plans and readiness documentation.
- Lead test readiness reviews, pre-test briefings, real-time technical decision-making, and post-test data reviews.
- Sit console during cold-flow, component, subsystem, and hot-fire testing.
- Own exploratory operation of new/existing engine designs and expand operating envelopes.
- Review test data to evaluate combustion performance, turbomachinery behavior, valve timing, thermal response, and overall engine performance.
- Troubleshoot technical issues during test campaigns and determine test direction.
- Lead anomaly investigations and root-cause analyses; ensure corrective actions are incorporated into design/operating approach.
- Maintain configuration control and traceability across design revisions, manufacturing deviations, test articles, and flight hardware.
- Work hands-on with test articles and flight hardware during assembly, integration, checkout, and troubleshooting.
- Support leak checks, proof testing, cleanliness verification, instrumentation checkout, and functional testing.
- Write or review test sequences, data-processing scripts, analysis tools, and automated health-monitoring methods.
- Design tooling, fixtures, instrumentation installations, or temporary test hardware to keep development moving.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, or related field.
- Significant experience developing liquid rocket engines or similar cryogenic propulsion systems.
- Direct experience supporting a large cryogenic rocket engine through multiple development and integrated testing phases.
- Demonstrated technical ownership of a complete engine, major subsystem, or propulsion test campaign.
- Strong understanding of liquid rocket engine systems, cryogenic fluid behavior, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer.
- Experience developing and reviewing P&IDs, fluid schematics, pressure budgets, operating sequences, and system-interface documentation.
- Experience designing tubing/plumbing for cryogenic, high-pressure, high-vibration, or high-temperature applications.
- Experience planning and executing propulsion tests, instrumentation, console work, data review, and anomaly resolution.
- Ability to move between analysis, detailed design, manufacturing, hardware integration, and test operations.
- Demonstrated ability to lead collaborative, high-ownership projects on ambitious schedules.
- Strong problem-solving skills and ability to make technically sound decisions with incomplete information.
- Willingness to work hands-on with hardware and support testing or flight operations outside regular hours.
Skills
Required:Engine system ownershipP&ID and fluid-system designPropulsion test planning and executionCross-functional collaboration
Benefits
- Competitive salary (135K - 200K)
- Equity options
- Location: Long Beach, CA (onsite)
- Opportunity to work on high-thrust space propulsion at a YC-backed startup
- Collaborative, mission-driven environment
Last updated Sep 30, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
About Orbital Operations
High Thrust Space Vehicles for Satellite Defense
Orbital Operations is developing a high thrust, reusable space vehicle for satellite defense. We protect critical satellites, like GPS and Military communication satellites, from adversarial threats, like China and Russia. Our vehicle will use the exact same propulsion systems that launch vehicles have used for decades by implementing a cryogenic management system. This will give us over 100x the thrust or current in-space propulsion. Ross and I have over 15 years of combined aerospace experience across NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Relativity Space. We’ve worked side by side for more than 3.5 years developing propulsion systems, turbomachinery, and building our own respective engineering teams. We are currently working on the first demo of our unique cryo management system and intend to launch an operational vehicle by 2027.
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