Propulsion and Testing Engineer

About the role

We are seeking a hands‑on Propulsion & Test Engineer to lead the solid‑propulsion and testing effort for a high‑performance flight vehicle. You will work closely with airframe, avionics and systems teams as well as external suppliers to take a propulsion subsystem from concept to reliable flight.

Key responsibilities

• Define solid rocket motor requirements (impulse, thrust profile, burn time, mass) and translate vehicle needs into propulsion specifications.
• Evaluate, integrate and qualify motors from suppliers and support in‑house motor development.
• Design and execute static‑fire and subsystem test campaigns, including test‑stand setup and instrumentation.
• Build and maintain instrumentation such as load cells, pressure transducers and thermocouples, and manage the data acquisition pipeline.
• Analyse test data, characterise motor performance and feed results back into design and supplier discussions.
• Support ground integration, environmental testing and flight‑test preparation.
• Diagnose anomalies and failures in propulsion and test hardware and drive corrective actions.

Required profile

• 1–5 years of hands‑on experience in rocket propulsion, propulsion testing or experimental flight vehicles (exceptional fresh graduates with strong rocketry‑team experience considered).
• Direct experience with solid rocket motors, test stands or high‑power rocketry – built, integrated, instrumented or fired.
• Solid understanding of solid‑propulsion fundamentals such as grain geometry, thrust‑time behaviour and nozzle basics.
• Working knowledge of test instrumentation and data‑acquisition systems.
• Comfort with data‑analysis tools such as MATLAB or Python.
• Safety‑first mindset when handling energetic materials and high‑pressure operations.
• Evidence of personal propulsion or test work (e.g., university rocketry team, competition participation).

Required skills

• Solid rocket motor design and testing
• Test‑stand operation
• Load cells, pressure transducers, thermocouples
• Data acquisition (DAQ) systems
• MATLAB
• Python