Senior Solid Rocket Motor (SRM) Engineer

Position Overview

iRocket is seeking a senior Solid Rocket Motor Engineer with demonstrated experience designing, building, and testing solid rocket motors. This position requires an engineer who can own an SRM from requirements and preliminary sizing through detailed design, hardware fabrication, motor build, static test, design iteration, and transition toward production. The successful candidate will be equally comfortable with analysis, engineering drawings, manufacturing decisions, test hardware, and hands-on technical execution, with a good understanding of basic program management for pairing with other team members.

The defining qualification for this role is demonstrated ability to take a solid rocket motor from design into real hardware and through successful test.

Location:

New York or Texas (Candidate's Choice)

This position may be based at either iRocket's New York or Texas facility, depending on the candidate's preference.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead solid rocket motor IR&D portfolio, to include sizing, design, analysis, development, build, and test activities from concept through production maturation.
• Design and integrate motor cases (metal and/or composite), propellant grains (traditional and/or advanced formulations), insulation/liners, igniters, nozzles, closures, interfaces, and related SRM components and subsystems.
• Perform or direct internal ballistics, performance, structural, thermal, mass-properties, margin, and design-trade analyses appropriate to SRM development.
• Generate and review engineering drawings, specifications, bills of material, interface requirements, build documentation, and configuration-controlled technical data.
• Work directly with manufacturing personnel and suppliers to resolve producibility issues, select materials and processes, and build flight-representative hardware.
• Plan and support motor assembly, instrumentation, static-fire testing, data reduction, post-test inspection, anomaly resolution, and design iteration.
• Drive design-for-manufacture and design-for-scale decisions that improve repeatability, affordability, throughput, and production readiness.
• Provide technical leadership across multidisciplinary teams and mentor developing engineers and technicians.

Required Qualifications

• Advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, propulsion, or a closely related engineering discipline.
• Minimum of Bachelor’s but preferred advanced minimum 5 years of directly relevant SRM design/development experience; 10+ years strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience designing and building solid rocket motors, with meaningful involvement in motor assembly and static-fire or flight-test activities.
• Strong working knowledge of SRM internal ballistics, grain geometry, case/nozzle/insulation design, materials, manufacturing methods, and propulsion-system integration.
• Ability to independently drive a motor development effort while making sound technical decisions in a fast-paced hardware environment.

Highly Desired Experience

• Rapid prototype-to-test development, tactical-class propulsion, advanced manufacturing, or high-rate SRM production.
• Motor case and nozzle design, thermal protection, igniter development, structural analysis, pressure-system design, or test instrumentation/data analysis.
• Qualification, production transition, supplier development, root-cause investigation, and technical risk management.
• Experience leading integrated teams through design reviews, build readiness, test readiness, and production-readiness milestones.

Accelerated Start: iRocket places a premium on candidates who can begin quickly. A signing / immediate-start bonus may be offered to highly qualified candidates who are available to start on an accelerated schedule, subject to final employment terms.

iRocket is an equal opportunity employer. Final responsibilities, compensation, bonus terms, work location, and employment conditions will be defined during the hiring process.