What are the responsibilities and job description for the Aerodynamics Engineer position at Heaviside Industries?
ABOUT HEAVISIDE INDUSTRIES
Heaviside Industries builds multi-domain autonomous precision munitions for U.S. and allied special operations and conventional forces. While modern warfare has rapidly evolved with the proliferation of unmanned systems, hyper-precise munitions in contested environments are the future of the battlefield. Economical precision strike capabilities are critical to U.S. and allied war efforts, enabling successful defeat of enemy military assets and infrastructure. Heaviside builds precision munitions designed to operate in GPS-denied and spectrum-jammed battlefields—where traditional systems degrade or fail—without inflated prices or sacrifice to performance.
All engineering and manufacturing is conducted in-house in Heaviside’s Los Angeles, CA headquarters and Oslo, Norway office.
Heaviside is backed by Interlagos, Menlo Ventures, Flume Ventures, Cantos, Anorak Ventures, and Ravelin Ventures.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
- Own the aerodynamic design and performance prediction of airframes across the full flight envelope
- Lead configuration trade studies: body shaping, fin and control-surface sizing, stability margins, and aero-propulsive integration
- Build and run CFD analyses (RANS, hybrid RANS-LES) and correlate with wind-tunnel and flight data; know when high-fidelity is worth the cost and when it isn’t
- Develop and maintain reduced-order aero models (lookup tables, derivative models) for use in 6-DOF simulation, GNC tuning, and HIL
- Drive control-surface effectiveness, hinge-moment, and trim analyses that the GNC and actuation teams can build on
- Plan and support wind-tunnel test campaigns: model design, instrumentation, test matrix, and data reduction
- Reconstruct flight performance from telemetry, flight test, and recovered hardware; close the loop on aero models and design changes
- Partner closely with structures, propulsion, GNC, and test engineering — aero touches everything and you’ll act like it
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
- BS, MS or PhD in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field — or equivalent shipped-product experience
- 5 years of production aerodynamics work on flight vehicles
- Production CFD experience with at least one major solver
- Experience using VLM/Panel-method solvers
- Strong foundation in compressible aerodynamics, stability and control, and projectile dynamics
- Hands-on experience building 6-DOF aero models and seeing them used by GNC for actual flight-test tuning
- Comfortable interpreting wind-tunnel data and reconciling it with CFD and flight-reconstruction results
- Track record of aero models that survived contact with flight test — and a clear story about the ones that didn’t
- Bonus: experience with transonic and supersonic regimes, store-separation analysis, jet-interaction effects, or aero-thermal coupling
- U.S. Person as defined by ITAR (22 CFR §120.62)
Additional Information:
Compensation bands are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual level and base pay is determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related skills, education, experience, technical capabilities and internal equity. In addition to base salary, for full-time hires, you may also be eligible for long-term incentives, in the form of stock options, and access to medical, vision & dental coverage as well as access to a 401(k) retirement plan.
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.
(https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/?id=ddtc_kb_article_page&sys_id=24d528fddbfc930044f9ff621f961987).
Heaviside is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Heaviside is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, physical disability or any other legally protected status.