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The Exploration Company is seeking a Propulsion Design Office Principal to lead the propulsion system design efforts for Nyx, a modular and reusable space orbital vehicle. This is a hands-on technical leadership role based in Bordeaux, France, with occasional travel to Munich.
You will lead, mentor, and grow a multidisciplinary engineering team spanning thermal analysis, structural/mechanical design, CFD, and CAD/design functions. Key responsibilities include defining team scopes of work, setting priorities, managing concurrent design activities, and conducting regular design reviews and one-on-ones to support career development.
On the technical side, you will own propulsion system design decisions for feed and pressure systems and associated structures. You'll drive design-to-requirements traceability, ensuring systems satisfy mass, thermal, and safety margins through qualification. You'll coordinate with Systems Engineering and Vehicle Design to manage interfaces between the propulsion system and adjacent vehicle subsystems.
Thermal management is a critical focus: you'll oversee steady-state and transient thermal analyses of propulsion components across all mission phases (ground operations, in-orbit, re-entry), review and approve thermal models, and guide the team in identifying test platforms and defining test objectives.
You'll direct mechanical design of propulsion structures and brackets, oversee FEA and hand-analysis efforts to verify structural margins, and work closely with the Assembly, Integration & Test (AIT) team to define and validate integration sequences.
You'll also define and enforce CAD standards, model maturity gates, and drawing release processes, oversee the engineering master model and bill of materials, and ensure design documentation (ICDs, drawings, design notes, specification trees) is complete, reviewed, and baselined on schedule.
Required: 5+ years of hands-on propulsion system design experience for launch vehicles, spacecraft, or space capsules with direct exposure to liquid propulsion architectures. You must demonstrate ability to work across thermal, structural, and mechanical domains, with a track record of managing small-to-mid-size engineering teams in fast-paced hardware environments. Prior experience running or closely supervising thermal (Thermal Desktop, ANSYS) and structural analyses (NASTRAN) and strong CAD familiarity (CATIA, NX) is essential. Experience managing complex system-level trades, interfaces, and formal design review processes is required.
You bring a hands-on problem-solving approach, collaborative mindset, excellent organizational skills, and ability to multitask. You work autonomously while collaborating productively with remote teams, maintain a positive and flexible attitude in evolving environments, and communicate effectively with diverse audiences.
