Senior Propulsion Engineer

Senior Propulsion Engineer

Location: Grand Rapids, MI, 49507
Summary

Michigan Wheel Operations is a marine propeller manufacturer serving commercial, recreational, and government fleets, vertically integrated with an in-house foundry, CNC machining, and finishing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Senior Propulsion Engineer is a new, senior role at the center of an expansion of our engineering capability. This role leads marine propeller and stern gear design from hydrodynamic concept through production-ready geometry and helps stand up the company's advanced analysis team, maturing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) into a core in-house strength and helping pioneer the use of AI-augmented simulation in propeller design.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Design marine propellers and stern gear from hydrodynamic concept through production-ready geometry, translating customer desires and vessel requirements into optimized blade designs.
• Develop and mature CFD workflows to analyze and improve performance, cavitation, efficiency, and wake behavior.
• Correlate analytical and CFD predictions against model-test and sea-trial data to validate and refine designs.
• Partner closely with manufacturing to ensure designs are producible within foundry and machining capabilities.
• Help build, mentor, and establish the methods and tooling of the advanced analysis team.
• Contribute to research, development, and continuous improvement across the propeller product line.

Qualifications

• MS in Naval Architecture / Marine Engineering. Mechanical and Aerospace degrees considered dependent on experience.
• 5+ years designing propellers, propulsors, pumps, or turbomachinery.
• Strong foundation in fluid dynamics, hydrodynamics, and applied numerical methods.

Skills

• Demonstrated hands-on CFD experience (e.g., STAR-CCM+, ANSYS Fluent/CFX, OpenFOAM), including the ability to build and validate simulation workflows.
• Familiarity with the application of machine learning to CFD (surrogate and reduced-order models, physics-informed neural networks, or data-driven turbulence modeling), and interest in developing predictive models from simulation and validation datasets (preferred).
• Proficiency with CAD and modern design tools.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across engineering and manufacturing teams.

Requirements

• Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Michigan Wheel is not able to provide work visa sponsorship for this position at this time.
• This position requires access to technical data controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Applicants must qualify as a "U.S. Person" as defined under the ITAR (a U.S. citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident / green card holder, or a protected individual), or must otherwise be authorized to access ITAR-controlled information.

Physical Demands

Primarily office-based engineering work, with periodic time on the shop floor and at testing or sea-trial activities. Must be able to work at a computer for extended periods and occasionally lift up to 25 pounds.
Work Environment

A combination of office and manufacturing environments. Shop-floor exposure includes noise, moving machinery, and personal protective equipment requirements.
Supervisory Responsibilities

None initially. This role is expected to help build and mentor the advanced analysis team, with the potential to grow into a leadership role as the capability matures.