Manager - Lunar Thermal Hardware Engineering

Blue Origin Thermal Hardware Engineer

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We're working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

This role is part of the Lunar Permanence business unit, which develops Blue Origin's Blue Moon landers and related products. To further Blue Origin's mission of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth, we are building sustainable infrastructure for our transport of crew and cargo from Earth to the lunar surface.

As the leader of a dedicated team of thermal hardware engineers, you will contribute to the definition, development, and delivery of spacecraft thermal components, specifically cold plates, heat exchangers and radiators. You should be comfortable working in a fast-paced and often uncertain environment, contributing to innovative solutions, while demonstrating personal leadership, technical competence, and attention to detail. You should also feel comfortable leading programs with multiple stakeholders and customers, including Blue Origin's vehicle teams (MK2, Transporter, and more) and be comfortable leading a team comprised of multiple backgrounds and disciplines that are in multiple geographic locations. In this role you will play a pivotal part in the programmatic aspects of project delivery as the single threaded leader for delivering all aspects of your assigned scope. Identifying and mitigating risks are critical tasks, and you'll need to effectively communicate these to leadership and your team. To be successful in this role, it is critical that you have a deep knowledge of aerospace thermal component designs that are used in deep space vehicle systems, specifically cold plates, heat exchangers, and radiators.

In addition to the technical oversight of your team, you will also be responsible for the people management aspect of your team, covering the full employee lifecycle from hiring and development to stringent & thoughtful performance management. Hiring the right talent, fostering their growth, and ensuring they are well-coached is essential for maintaining a high-functioning team. You'll be actively engaged in creating a positive and productive team culture that adheres to all required HR processes and policies.

Special Mentions:

• Relocation provided
• Travel expected up to 20% of the time

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Product Delivery:

• Manage your project scope by ensuring scrappy and cost-effective execution while maintaining a tight grip on the project deliverables needed to meet program objectives.
• Identify and manage technical and programmatic risks/opportunities. This includes technical, scope (i.e., cost and schedule), asset and safety risks and opportunities specific to program and project execution. Risk management includes identifying, documenting, communicating, developing mitigation plans and collaborating with your peers & program leaders to drive outcomes to program acceptable levels.
• Coordinate and partner with Enterprise functions such as Operations and Supply Chain to drive product cost and meet delivery objectives.
• Track and manage your team execution, and both unit product cost/life cycle cost.
• Create the framework used to develop and drive collection of project data and use this data to inform & monitor key project metrics

Functional Management:

• Oversee the full lifecycle of your employees including talent acquisition, employee development, and when needed, performance management.
• Foster an environment of continuous growth and learning, ensuring compliance with HR processes and policies.

Technical Leadership:

• Engage with the team on technical decisions regarding thermal hardware design, development, build, and test
• Develop and oversee the technical plan, ensuring it aligns to both negotiated customer requirements and internal design criteria.
• Own the overall lifecycle of your assigned product scope from development through qualification/ rate production.
• Manage interdisciplinary engineering tasks for overall system success.
• Ensure the quality of engineering outputs, providing technical direction and guidance to the team.
• Support requirement decomposition and allocation, systems engineering, technical design, analysis, and verification/validation – including strong management and bi-directional alignment of interfaces between customers and project technical efforts.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Proven track record of leading and managing teams to deliver complex engineering products.
• Minimum of a B.S. degree in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering
• Solid understanding of thermal/heat transfer fundamentals
• 5+ years of experience in a relevant engineering field, with significant experience in aerospace thermal systems.
• 2+ years of project management experience.
• Basic knowledge across relevant engineering disciplines, including requirements negotiation, design, analysis, manufacturing, testing and vehicle integration.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to effectively communicate across all levels of the organization.
• Hands-on experience with the development lifecycle of cold plates, heat exchangers, radiators or other thermal components
• Experience with working on Thermal, Cryogenic and/or Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) components used on deep space vehicles

Preferred Qualifications:

• M.S. degree in mechanical or aerospace engineering
• 3+ years of experience managing technical teams and/or leading functional groups with responsibility for leading and coaching employees
• 8+ years of experience in thermal engineering for spacecraft systems
• Experience with resource/budget management and reporting.
• Experience with Agile, IMP-level scheduling, risk management, configuration management, requirements management processes.
• Solid understanding of pumped fluid loop hardware such as pumps, cold plates, radiators, valves, heat exchangers, etc and semi-passive devices like sensors and heaters.
• Experience going through an entire design lifecycle for components
• Demonstrated ability to lead change and drive continuous improvement.
• Familiarity with industry-leading tools such as ANSYS, Thermal Desktop, Star CCM+, Jules, Windchill, and Creo Parametric.
• Experience in planning and executing test programs for thermal systems.
• Experience in safety-critical aerospace vehicle certification processes.
• Proven ability to develop and maintain thermal component roadmaps.

Compensation Range for: CO applicants is $134,156.00-$187,817.70; WA applicants is $146,352.00-$204,891.75 Other site ranges may differ

Culture Statement

Don't meet all desired requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single desired qualification. At Blue Origin, we are dedicated to building an authentic workplace, so if you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every desired qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Export Control Regulations

Applicants for employment at Blue Origin must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e. current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Background Check

• Required for all positions: Blue's Standard Background Check
• Required for Certain Job Profiles: Defense Biometric Identification System (DBIDS) background check if at any time the role requires one to be on a military installation
• Required for Certain Job Profiles: Drivers who operate Commercial Motor Vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) or combination of power unit and trailer that meets or exceeds 10,001 lbs. and/or transports placardable amounts of hazardous materials by ground in any vehicle on a public road while in commerce, may be subject to additional Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations including: Driver Qualification Files, Medical Certification (obtained before onboarding), Road Test, Hours of Service, Drug and Alcohol Testing (CDL drivers only), vehicle inspection requirements, CDL requirements (if applicable) and hazardous materials transportation/shipping training.
• Required for certain Job Profiles: Ability to obtain and maintain Merchant Mariner Credential, which includes pre-employment and random drug testing as well as DOT physical

Benefits

• Benefits include: Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with a