Senior Structural Engineer, Simulation

Job Description

Job Description

About the Company

We are a renewable energy and ocean technology company committed to rapidly developing and deploying technologies that will ensure a sustainable future for Earth by unlocking the vast energy potential of its oceans. Our focus is on capturing civilizational levels of ultra-low-cost renewable energy for applications including computing and affordable renewable fuels delivered to shore.

The company is a public benefit corporation headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and backed by leading venture capitalists, philanthropic investors, university endowments, and private investment offices. We operate as an idea meritocracy in which the best ideas change the company's direction on a regular basis.

Our staff have worked at organizations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Tesla, Apple, Virgin Orbit, Astra, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, New Relic, Bridgewater, Raytheon, Disney Imagineering, and the US Army and Air Force, as well as research universities, startups, and small companies across a range of industries.

About the Job

We are developing a core technology that will operate in the worst conditions the world's oceans have to offer for years at a time without human maintenance or intervention. As a Senior Structural Engineer - Simulation, you will be the architect of the digital tools that define our physical success. You will sit at the intersection of structural mechanics and high-performance computing, developing the solvers and automation pipelines that allow us to evaluate millions of design possibilities with physics-backed confidence.

You will lead the development of our internal Julia-based reduced order structural models (ROM) and the pipelines connecting these fast solvers with high-fidelity FEA.

We expect you to be an expert in structural fundamentals who is equally comfortable writing production-grade code, managing cloud-based compute environments, and validating complex load cases against first principles.

Our staff have worked at organizations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Virgin Orbit, Virgin Galactic, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, New Relic, Raytheon, Disney Imagineering, Bridgewater Associates, and the US Army and Air Force, as well as research universities, startups, and small companies across a range of industries. 

Candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment in which the best ideas change the company's direction on a regular basis. You will own your designs cradle-to-grave, from first concept through fabrication and deployment at sea. If you are an excellent engineer, regardless of your background, we want you to apply.

We strive to be the best engineering team on the planet and we compensate our engineers accordingly. 

Responsibilities

• Maintain and advance our reduced-order beam element analysis tool written in Julia. Author new load cases, fix bugs, and optimize performance.
• Build and maintain seamless automation pipelines that transition designs from reduced-order models to high-fidelity FEA shell element models.
• Collaborate with Marine Ops, Manufacturing, and ME teams to define and analyze critical load environments, including wave slamming, tow loads, crane lifts, and fatigue.
• Own the mass estimation process for candidate devices, providing high-accuracy tracking as we iterate through new design concepts.
• Verify automated results using classical hand calculations and perform FEA in Nastran to validate the accuracy of reduced-order outputs.
• Leverage Docker, GCP, and PostgreSQL/Python to manage large-scale simulation data and cloud-based compute workloads.
• Act as the structural simulation lead for novel primary structures, ensuring designs are well-understood from a structural perspective even when conceptual in their maturity.

Required qualifications

• An undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering, Structural Engineering, or equivalent experience and expertise.
• 3+ years of experience in a role involving both structural analysis and software/tooling development.
• Proven experience writing clean, maintainable code in Julia and Python.
• Deep fundamental understanding of structures - preferably large-scale steel structures
• Familiarity with marine-specific load environments (hydrodynamics, mooring, or offshore structures).
• Experience with Git, Docker, and cloud computing environments (GCP/AWS/Azure).
• Working knowledge of Nastran or similar solvers for validating structural models.
• Ability to use AI for code generation and efficiency while maintaining the technical intuition to spot errors in the output.

Desired qualifications

• Advanced degree (MS/PhD) focusing on computational mechanics or structural dynamics.
• Experience with PostgreSQL or other relational databases for managing large simulation datasets.
• Experience building "human-in-the-loop" automation tools that simplify complex engineering workflows.
• Curiosity to learn all aspects of device dynamics beyond structural analysis.

The above qualifications are desired, not required. We encourage you to apply if you are a strong candidate with only some of the desired skills and experience listed.

Additional Requirements

• Intermittently able to work longer hours and weekends to support critical needs. While we expect a lot of each other, we also offer a high degree of autonomy and work-life balance, including unlimited PTO, and flexible working hours.

Compensation and Benefits

If hired for this full-time role, you will receive:

• Cash compensation of $150,000 - $250,000.
• Equity in the company. We're all owners and if we're successful, this equity should be far and away the most valuable component of your compensation.
• A benefits package that helps you take care of yourself and your family, including:
  • Flexible paid time off
  • Health insurance (the company pays 100% of gold-level PPO plan for full-time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Dental insurance (the company pays 100% for full-time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Vision insurance (the company pays 100% for full-time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Disability insurance (the company pays 100% for a policy to provide long-term financial support if you become disabled)
  • Ability to contribute to tax-advantaged accounts, including 401(k), health FSA, and dependent care FSA
• Relocation assistance to facilitate your move to Portland (if needed).

Location

Our offices, lab, and shop are located in Portland, Oregon. We strongly prefer that candidates are willing to relocate to Portland, but at a minimum the position requires the ability to  travel to Portland intermittently .