Team Lead - Thermofluids Analysis

ABOUT ROCKET LAB

Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems that keep the world connected, protected, expand humanity’s reach to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. We move fast, build real hardware for meaningful missions, and make the impossible routine. Come shape the future with us.

While other companies talk about it, we do it!

NEUTRON

Rocket Lab’s Neutron team is responsible for bringing our new large rocket Neutron and its launch and test sites to life. From designing and testing Neutron’s structures and components, to firing up its new Archimedes engines, to setting up Neutron’s launch pads and test sites across the United States, joining the Neutron team is your opportunity to help launch a new large rocket for the very first time.

TEAM LEAD - THERMOFLUIDS ANALYSIS

We're looking for a Team Lead to head up our Thermofluids Analysis team, taking ownership of all thermodynamics and fluid mechanics across our launch systems. 

In this role, you'll lead a multidisciplinary team spanning Aeroscience, Thermal, and Propellant analysis, representing these domains to the program’s product-focused teams. You'll inform and direct concept-level trades around architecture, operation, and capability; evaluate systems for their performance, environments, and characteristics; and use those insights to shape requirements and drive risk posture across the program. 

Beyond the technical, you'll be responsible for building and developing the team itself—mentoring and supporting your direct reports, identifying skills gaps, meeting resourcing needs, and ensuring the successful delivery of key strategic engineering projects. You'll also set the appropriate level of fidelity needed to make informed engineering decisions, develop and maintain the tools and capabilities that underpin the team's analyses, and engage stakeholders across the organisation to unlock progress. 

This role is based in Auckland, New Zealand. 

WHAT YOU'LL GET TO DO:

• Leadership & Team Development
  • Manage, mentor, and develop your direct reports—providing coaching, timely feedback, and professional development opportunities while identifying skills gaps to drive cross-functional training
  • Ensure the successful delivery of key strategic engineering projects, negotiating resource and priority across the organization
  • Provide regular project status updates, conduct peer reviews, and produce qualification test levels through consistent application of approved margining approaches
• Aeroscience
  • Generate aerotables and characterise vehicle performance—covering stability, control authority, loads, pressure distributions, and aerodynamic design of vehicle control surfaces
  • Perform, validate, and document CFD analyses of external flow across hypersonic, transonic and subsonic regimes, and characterise aerodynamic and heating environments, transients, and separation events
  • Model plumes and plume interactions (base heating, PIFS, impingement) and define re-entry architecture, including ballistic coefficients, ConOps, and compartment venting
• Thermal
  • Own system thermal design across ground, flight, and in-space operations, including TPS response, compartment thermals, insulation, and component thermal modelling
  • Perform heat transfer simulations (conduction, convection, radiation) and characterise thermal environments, developing design guidelines and mitigations
  • Model HVAC and cavity conditioning (flow/temperature specification, pressure drop, flammability, cleanliness, humidity) and support payload integration and customer ITAs
• Propellant
  • Own propellant delivery and management—covering temperatures and stratification, cavitation margin, transients, slosh, PMD design, settling, and in-space thermodynamics—and perform CFD of internal fluid systems (compressible and incompressible flow)
  • Address depletion, residuals, and utilisation control, and own tank pressurisation, including pressurant budgets, in-tank thermodynamics, and autogenous system sizing
  • Design RCS systems, including N2 budget, thruster specification, and flow modelling of valves and lines
• Analysis & Data
  • Work closely with design and test engineers to iterate design concepts, determine test requirements, and demonstrate positive margins through numerical analysis, and physical test
  • Process and interpret ground test and flight data—confirming MPE bounds, detecting out-of-family results, and resolving sensor configuration issues 

YOU'LL BRING THESE QUALIFICATIONS:

• A degree in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering or similar field
• 5+ years industry experience, ideally from the Aerospace, Automotive, or Marine industries
• A keen physics and first principles-based approach to problem solving
• Experience with one or more industry standard CFD packages: Fluent, CFX, STAR-CCM+
• Experience with one or more industry standard thermal modelling packages: Thermal Desktop, THERMICA, NX SST
• Expertise in engineering programming, especially using Python (including Python packages numpy, pandas, scipy, matplotlib, etc.)
• Demonstrated ability executing to changing deadlines in a high-pressure and fast-paced work environment  

THESE QUALIFICATIONS WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE:

• Experience with sensor selection and data post-processing/ interpretation (accelerometers, strain gauges, thermocouples etc.)
• Experience using NX CAD and Teamcenter packages (or comparable industry standard packages) with emphasis on model interrogation and defeaturing for subsequent analysis
• Experience in mentoring junior engineers 

If the above sounds like you apply now!

WHAT TO EXPECT 

We’re on a mission to unlock the potential of space to improve life on Earth, but that’s not an easy task. It takes hard work, determination, relentless innovation, teamwork, grit, and an unwavering commitment to achieving what others often deem impossible. Our people out-think, out-work, and out-pace. We pride ourselves on having each other’s backs, checking our egos at the door, and rolling up our sleeves on all tasks big and small. We thrive under pressure, work to tight deadlines, and our focus is always on how we can deliver, rather than dwelling on the challenges that stand in the way.   

Important information:

FOR CANDIDATES SEEKING TO WORK IN US OFFICES ONLY:

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Rocket Lab Employees must be a U.S. citizen, lawful U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State and/or the U.S. Department of Commerce, as applicable. Learn more about ITAR here.

Rocket Lab provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment at Rocket Lab, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation for the application/interview process for a job in the United States should contact Giulia Johnson at g.biow@rocketlabusa.com.This dedicated resource is intended solely to assist job seekers with disabilities whose disability prevents them from being able to apply/interview. Only messages left for this purpose will be considered. A response to your request may take up to two business days.

FOR CANDIDATES SEEKING TO WORK IN NEW ZEALAND OFFICES ONLY:

For security reasons, background checks will be undertaken prior to any employment offers being made to an applicant.  These checks will include nationality checks as it is a requirement of this position that you be eligible to access equipment and data regulated by the United States' International Traffic in Arms Regulations. 

Under these Regulations, you may be ineligible for this role if you do not hold citizenship of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the European Union, or a country that is part of NATO, or if you hold ineligible dual citizenship or nationality.  For more information on these Regulations, click here ITAR Regulations.