SpaceX - Hawthorne, CA
posted 3 months ago
The Merlin Flight Operations team at SpaceX is dedicated to ensuring the rapid and reliable delivery of Falcon and its payloads to orbit. As a Propulsion Engineer on this team, you will play a crucial role in ensuring the flightworthiness of the Merlin engine hardware and software throughout the engine's lifecycle. This includes overseeing the initial build, acceptance testing, and operational phases, including both flight and re-flight operations. Your responsibilities will also encompass driving initiatives aimed at improving reliability and enabling higher launch rates, thereby contributing to the long-term success of the Falcon rocket, which is recognized as the most-flown and most-reliable launch vehicle in existence. In this role, you will develop a comprehensive understanding of the Merlin engine and its operational parameters. You will be tasked with making critical decisions regarding the processing of Merlin engine hardware during various stages, including build, test, integration, and flight, to ensure 100% mission success. You will define, implement, and validate engine acceptance and operational requirements that promote reliability, rapid reusability, and streamlined processing of engines. Additionally, you will take primary responsibility for the success of the Merlin engine(s) during specific test or launch campaigns. Your support will extend across all SpaceX facilities during test and launch operations, including providing live on-console support from mission control. You will conduct post-test and post-flight data reviews, offering technical recommendations to the Vehicle Maintenance team to facilitate the rapid and reliable reuse of hardware. The role requires you to solve undefined and multi-disciplinary problems, collaborating with engineering and technician teams across various disciplines, including production, test, launch, and propulsion. You will also work closely with both commercial and government customers to reduce technical debt, mitigate flight risks, and ensure maximum reliability of hardware and software. Leading engine anomaly investigations and driving these investigations to resolution will be part of your responsibilities. Furthermore, you will develop new automation capabilities to enhance launch cadence, leveraging coding for rapid test and flight data analysis, flight software verification, and other engineering processes to eliminate recurring work. Optimizing recurring test and mission tasks will be essential to meet the increasingly demanding launch manifest.