Materials Engineer, Rocket Motor Systems

Employer description

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

About the Team

Anduril's Rocket Motor Systems (RMS) team is rebuilding U.S. domestic production capacity for solid rocket propulsion. We're looking for a Materials and Process (M&P) Engineer to help connect how a motor is formulated, tested, and built to how it actually performs. You'll work across the full stack of solid rocket motor materials: insulation, seals, propellants, motor cases, nozzles, and energetic systems.

About the Role

This is a role you'll grow into. Alongside a supportive team, you'll help build the M&P infrastructure that lets the RMS team scale from prototype development to high-rate production, contributing to the material specifications, process specifications, acceptance test procedures, and design allowables that turn fast-moving development work into clear, configuration-controlled engineering documentation. You'll take on more ownership as you go, and you'll have experienced engineers around you to learn from while you do.

We're looking for someone with solid materials-science fundamentals for aerospace applications, a habit of documenting their work so others can build on it, and genuine curiosity about how materials behave in the real world. You might be early in your career or already deep in it, either way, you like being hands-on in the lab and thinking about how to make good work repeatable.

What You'll Do

• Connect polymeric material properties, characterization, and processing fundamentals to solid rocket motor design, formulation, testing, manufacturing, and performance
• Build and maintain material specifications that connect system performance requirements to formulation for polymeric materials spanning raw materials, components, and assemblies, including liners, seals, propellants, cases (metal and composite), ablatives, insulators, adhesives, and coatings
• Develop standard testing procedures to characterize the mechanical, viscoelastic, thermal, and surface behavior of polymeric materials across solid rocket motor components and assemblies
• Create process specifications for manufacturing operations including propellant processing, ablative manufacturing, insulation/liner bonding and surface preparation, surface modification, coating application, adhesive curing, heat treatment, and final assembly
• Run materials characterization for polymeric materials including mechanical testing (tensile, shear, flexural, bonding), thermal analysis, rheology, cure kinetics, surface energy and interfaces, and ablation performance
• Develop design allowables from characterization results per industry standards (CMH-17, JANNAF)
• Partner with design and manufacturing teams to review drawings and manufacturing plans, support design reviews, and troubleshoot production issues
• Work across science, engineering, manufacturing, quality, and program teams to turn mission requirements into right-sized material and process solutions
• Contribute to cost-reduction and cycle-time improvement efforts for high-rate production and prepare technical documentation that lets us move fast without losing rigor

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Materials Science, Polymer Engineering, Polymer Science, Chemical Engineering, or a related field
• 2+ years of materials and process engineering experience in material testing for aerospace, propulsion, or defense applications
• Working knowledge in one or more of the following (with interest in growing into the others): polymer mechanics and rheology, propellant materials and processing, adhesive bonding, cure kinetics, and surface preparation
• Exposure to developing material or process specifications
• Experience with material characterization, testing, and documentation
• Strong technical writing and attention to detail
• Ability to manage multiple priorities independently in a fast-paced environment
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's or Doctorate in Materials Science, Polymer Engineering, Polymer Science, Chemical Engineering, or a related field
• Direct experience with materials used in solid rocket motors, including insulation, seals, propellants, motor cases, nozzles, and energetic components
• Depth or growing interest in two or more of the following: high-temperature coatings, adhesives, insulation, liners, and ablatives; polymer surface characterization and modification; interfacial mechanics, chemistry, and behavior (polymer-to-polymer, metal-to-polymer, ceramic-to-polymer)
• Hands-on experience with polymer processing, propellant processing, composite fabrication, ablative manufacturing, or metal case production
• Experience developing design allowables per CMH-17, JANNAF, or MIL-HDBK-17 standards
• Experience with NDI methods and developing inspection procedures
• Experience characterizing polymer material interfaces across solid rocket motor systems (insulation-to-propellant, insulation-to-motor case, seals-to-motor case) via mechanical, thermal, and/or spectroscopy methods
• Familiarity with MIL-STDs, AIAA standards, and JANNAF best practices
• Knowledge of rocket motor design, internal ballistics, and combustion environments
• Experience participating in Engineering Review Boards, Material Review Boards, and Failure Review Boards
• Experience transitioning processes from development to production in agile environments

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including: 

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.

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