What are the responsibilities and job description for the Digital Twin Engineer position at Aquila Engineering?
Job Title: Digital Twin Engineer
Location: Houston, TX
Department: Innovation & Product Development
Reports To: Senior Manager, Innovation & Product Development
Role Overview
Aquila is building an advanced digital twin environment to support real-time BOP reliability analytics, shear-testing simulation, and AI-powered engineering workflows. We are seeking a Digital Twin Engineer (Omniverse) to lead the development of our BOP and shear system digital twin using NVIDIA Omniverse, USD, and simulation-based modeling.
This role will work across engineering, data science, and product teams to create interactive, physics-aware models that connect real DPT and shear-test data with simulation and predictive analytics.
Key Responsibilities
- Build, configure, and maintain Aquila’s BOP and shear-system digital twin using NVIDIA Omniverse, USD, and Omniverse Kit APIs.
- Develop Omniverse extensions and Python-based tools to simulate shear events, hydraulic-system response, accumulator behavior, and system anomalies.
- Convert engineering drawings into optimized USD assets suitable for real-time rendering and simulation.
- Integrate real DPT and shear time-series data with the digital twin for validation, diagnostics, and visualization.
- Collaborate with mechanical and reliability engineers to ensure simulations reflect accurate hydraulic and mechanical behavior.
- Work with data science teams to support model training, synthetic data generation, and advanced testing scenarios.
- Deploy and manage Omniverse services (Nucleus, Kit applications, simulation environments) on Aquila’s on-prem AI lab infrastructure.
- Develop tools and visual panels for AI test labs located in the Aquila office and future operator-facing diagnostics.
- Document processes, APIs, workflows, and digital twin lifecycle management for internal engineering use.
Required Skills and Experience
- Hands-on experience with NVIDIA Omniverse, including USD, Omniverse Kit, and real-time simulation workflows.
- Strong Python development skills for extensions, APIs, automation, and data handling.
- Experience converting and optimizing CAD models (SolidWorks, Creo, NX, STEP) for real-time use.
- Working understanding of mechanical or hydraulic systems, especially pressure and force interactions.
- Familiarity with simulation concepts such as constraints, solvers, and physics engines.
- Experience with sensor or time-series data used in engineering analysis.
- Comfort working in Linux environments and familiarity with containerized workloads.
- Strong communication skills to collaborate with engineering, software, and data teams.
Preferred Qualifications
- Bachelor’s or master’s degree in mechanical engineering, mechatronics, computer engineering, robotics, or related field.
- Experience building digital twins for industrial, energy, or mechanical systems.
- Knowledge of PyTorch or ML pipelines for future integration of predictive modeling.
- Experience with GPU compute environments or high-performance simulation workflows.
- Familiarity with oil and gas drilling operations.