Senior Stress Engineer

Job Description

Senior Structural Analyst Engineer

Location: Los Angeles, San Francisco or Washington DC

Industry: Advanced Technology | Aerospace & Defense | Embedded Systems

Salary: $150,000 - $290,000

About the Company

We’re partnering with one of the fastest growing engineering companies in its sector, building hardware and software where failure isn’t an option. Backed by major investment and hiring across every team, the business is scaling quickly, so new engineers join at a point where they can shape the teams, products and processes that come next.

As a Senior Structures Analyst, you’ll own durability and damage tolerance on a brand new unmanned aircraft, from the first design criteria through to flight. You’ll lead composite damage tolerance and metallic fatigue and crack growth analysis, set the structural life and inspection programme, and present your work at major design reviews. With a clean sheet airframe and no legacy processes, you’ll be setting the methods rather than inheriting them, with real room to grow your scope and leadership as the team expands.

What you’ll do

• Lead composite damage tolerance (impact damage, disbonds, delamination) and metallic fatigue and crack growth analysis
• Define the structural life and inspection programme, setting thresholds and intervals for the flight test fleet and beyond
• Present analysis at PDR, CDR and government reviews under military certification standards (MIL-HDBK-516, JSSG-2006, MIL-STD-1530)

What you’ll bring

• 8+ years in aircraft structures, focused on durability and damage tolerance of primary structure
• Composite damage tolerance experience plus strong metallic fracture mechanics using NASGRO, AFGROW or equivalent
• Solid static stress foundation in hand analysis and FEA (Nastran, Femap, HyperMesh or Abaqus)
• Ability to obtain and maintain a US security clearance

Why join

• Own clean sheet aircraft analysis and set the methods, rather than working inside a legacy programme
• Join early in a company that has raised $1B since it was founded in 2022 and is scaling fast
• Competitive base salary plus meaningful equity