Thermal Protection Systems Engineer

Hop Aero is a venture-backed startup building rockets that deliver cargo anywhere on Earth in minutes.

Our mission is to enable resilient global logistics to protect and improve our way of life. Our founding team has prior experience founding a satellite startup and taking it to orbit, launching 20+ Falcon 9 missions at SpaceX, and leading engineering teams at some of the world’s most advanced aerospace organizations. The company is well-capitalized through venture funding and government contracts.

About the role We’re hiring a Thermal Protection Systems Engineer to develop the thermal protection that enables our rocket-powered cargo vehicles to withstand high-speed atmospheric flight and reentry. Your work will directly shape the vehicle’s design, thermal performance, and ability to be reused.

This is a hands-on role for someone with roughly five or more years of relevant experience who enjoys connecting analysis to real hardware. You will own TPS development from requirements and material selection through design, manufacturing, integration, and testing. You will work alongside structures, aerodynamics, GNC, propulsion, and manufacturing to turn thermal requirements into flight hardware.

Job Description

• Own thermal-protection development from requirements and concept selection through hardware testing and vehicle integration
• Translate aerodynamic heating environments into TPS requirements, thermal margins, and verification plans
• Evaluate materials, insulation, coatings, and TPS architectures against thermal performance, mass, manufacturability, inspection, and reuse requirements
• Develop thermal models and work with structures and mechanical engineers on attachments, interfaces, and thermal expansion
• Plan and execute material, coupon, and component tests; define instrumentation and correlate models with measured results
• Work directly with suppliers and manufacturing partners to build repeatable hardware and resolve manufacturing issues
• Support vehicle integration, ground and flight testing, and post-test inspection to guide design improvements
• Work in person with the team at our shop in Orange, CA

Requirements

• 5-10 years of relevant experience in thermal protection, high-temperature aerospace hardware, aerothermal engineering, or a closely related field
• Strong understanding of heat transfer and experience applying thermal analysis to hardware design
• Experience developing or evaluating thermal-protection materials or systems, including their integration with surrounding hardware
• Demonstrated ability to take engineering work through design, manufacturing or procurement, and testing
• Experience interpreting experimental data, investigating discrepancies, and validating analytical models
• Ability to make practical tradeoffs across thermal performance, mass, structural interfaces, cost, and manufacturability
• Willingness to work directly with hardware and collaborate across engineering disciplines
• Willingness to travel domestically to support testing, including between our headquarters in Orange, CA, and our out-of-state test site
• Must be a U.S. person under ITAR — Hop Aero will not sponsor visas for this role.

Nice to have

• Experience with reentry vehicles, hypersonic flight, reusable spacecraft, or other demanding aerospace thermal environments
• Experience with ablative, ceramic, metallic, or composite thermal-protection systems
• Experience with arc-jet, plasma, wind-tunnel, or other relevant thermal testing
• Familiarity with CFD, aerothermal environment prediction, or coupled thermal-structural analysis
• Experience with temperature and heat-flux instrumentation, flight-data correlation, or post-flight inspection
• Experience designing for refurbishment, repair, or repeated use

What we offer

• Base salary of $120,000–$180,000, depending on experience and scope, plus stock options
• Healthcare, office meals, and snacks
• Direct collaboration with founders and engineers with extensive flight experience
• Ownership of a defined vehicle capability, with a direct connection between your engineering decisions and hardware performance
• Opportunity to grow your career path within a fast-growing company.

Even if you don’t meet every single requirement, we’d still love to hear from you.