Senior Aerothermal Engineer

Advanced Reentry Technologies Who We Are: Inversion is an aerospace and defense company pioneering advanced reentry technology to enable next-generation capabilities from space. By combining high-performance materials, precision aerodynamics, and mission-driven autonomy, Inversion is transforming reentry into an operational capability for an entirely new class of missions. The company’s highly maneuverable reentry spacecraft, Arc, is designed for rapid global cargo delivery, hypersonic testing, and other national security missions that require precise, controlled flight through the atmosphere. Arc creates an entirely new transportation domain, unlocking unprecedented speed and global reach. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Inversion designs, manufactures, and integrates its spacecraft under one roof, enabling the company to move rapidly from concept to flight. The company is backed by leading investors including Y Combinator, Spark Capital, and Lockheed Martin Ventures, with customers across the U.S. government and commercial space industry. Position Overview: Every surface of Inversion's reentry vehicles is designed against the aerothermal environment it must survive — and that environment must be known before it can be designed against. As the Senior Aerothermal Environments Engineer, you will develop and database the aerothermal environment around our reentry vehicles, combining high-fidelity CFD, engineering-level methods, and test data into database products that drive vehicle design. In this role, you will: Develop and maintain aerothermal environment databases spanning the full flight envelope of Inversion's reentry vehicles Run high-enthalpy CFD solutions at conditions anchoring the database, including flows in thermal-chemical non-equilibrium Apply handbook and engineering-level heating estimation methods to efficiently populate the trajectory and attitude space between high-fidelity anchor points Fuse heating estimates from data sources of varying fidelity — CFD, engineering methods, ground test, and flight data — into coherent database products with defined uncertainties and margins Deliver environments that directly drive TPS sizing, structural design, and trajectory constraints, and support downstream users in applying them correctly Build and mature the tooling, automation, and data infrastructure behind database generation and delivery Required Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent experience Typically, 5+ years of experience in hypersonic, supersonic, reentry, or rocketry aerothermodynamic analysis Experience running high-enthalpy flow solvers (US3D, DPLR, LAURA, Loci-CHEM, or similar) Experience with handbook and engineering-level heating estimation methods (e.g., Fay-Riddell, Tauber, MINIVER-class tools, or similar correlations) Strong fundamentals in hypersonic aerodynamics, boundary layer physics, and convective and radiative…