Sr Prin R&D Engineer - SRM Ballistician

Company Overview

General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (OTS) is a global leader in the design, engineering and production of munitions, energetics, weapons, armaments, and missile subsystems around the world. OTS empowers the U.S. military and its allies with an extensive range of overarching product segments applied across all levels of strategic and tactical operations, providing a cutting-edge advantage to our warfighters. Our Ethos of Honesty, Trust, Transparency, and Alignment, are the guiding principles that form the foundation of everything we do. Integrity is paramount, innovation fuels our passion, customer satisfaction is at the core of our mission, and collaboration is key to our success - fostering a culture of teamwork and mutual respect among employees, partners, and stakeholders. Whether you're just starting out on your career journey or are an experienced professional, we offer a robust total rewards package that goes above and beyond with compensation; healthcare, wellness, retirement, and work/life benefits that include career development and recognition programs. If who we are and what we do resonates with you, we invite you to join our high-performance team!

Job Summary

We are currently seeking a Ballistician to join our growing Solid Rocket Motor Engineering Team. The ideal candidate will be responsible for generating rocket motor concepts from high level thrust/burn time requirements and refining into detailed grain and nozzle designs. The job requires collaboration to define propellant grain geometries and optimize burn rates, thrust curves, and pressure profiles. The candidate will work with design engineers to communicate operating pressures, analysts to communicate temperature and load profiles, chemists to communicate ballistic requirements, and manufacturing engineers to ensure grain geometry can be produced. ** This is a full-time position with a 9/80 schedule. This position can be remote or at our Huntsville, AL or Hampton, AR facility.

Impact of the Role

General Profile

• Recognized as an expert within the company and requires in-depth and/or breadth of expertise in own job discipline and broad knowledge of other job disciplines within the organization function
• Solves unique problems that have a broad impact on the business
• Contributes to the development of organization functional strategy
• Progression to this level is typically restricted on the basis of business requirements
• Consistent exercise of discretion & judgment

Essential Functions

• Conducts research, design, and development activities with the goal of developing new or improved products, processes, or services.
• Collaborates with internal manufacturing partners, contract manufacturers, designers and product specialists to optimize designs for manufacturability.
• Utilizes CAD (Computer Aided Design) or CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) systems to model new designs and produce detailed engineering drawings.
• Conducts market research, tracks projects, builds spreadsheets evaluating trade space, designs presentation slides, and executes business-oriented tasks.
• Draws on technical background to learn complex systems, systems of systems, and technologies needed to understand products and services; then, applies a creative and open-minded approach to problem solve, seeking and finding new robust solutions.
• Evolves business strategy through assimilation of new technology, evaluating competition, researching industry movement, road-mapping, and conducting SWOTs.
• Conducts initial business case evaluations, building strategy and identifying value propositions mutually beneficial to the business and customer alike (e.g. differentiation, price to win, etc.).
• Summarizes research results and communicates findings to internal and external bodies.
• Develops technical documentation for all projects.
• Requires the use of advanced techniques and the modification or extension of theories, concepts, and practices.

Required Qualifications

• Required education and experience: Associate's Degree and 10-12 years' experience
• Discipline/Major: Engineering degree required
• Critical professional related technical skills; computer skills: Proficient in Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)

Preferred Qualifications

• Preferred education and experience: Bachelor's Degree
• Knowledge, skills & abilities: Product innovation. Product intelligence. Product research. Project scoping. Quantitative research. Research and development. Research documentation. Oral and written communication skills. Critical thinking. Analytical thinking.

Essential Functions:

• Develop: Create rocket motor concepts to meet customer requirements.
• Design and Analysis: Refine grain geometries and optimize burn rates, thrust and pressure curves in collaboration with other stakeholders
• Testing & Qualification: Lead static fire test campaigns and ground-based prototyping. Analyze test data to validate performance and investigate any anomalies.
• Data Reduction: Reduce strand burner, subscale and fullscale motor data to determine burn rate properties of propellants
• Manufacturing Oversight: Oversee propellant casting, curing cycles, and review of tool designs.

Physical Requirements

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position at a desk and/or computer for extended periods of time.
• Requires regular movement throughout GD-OTS facilities.
• Work primarily in a climate-controlled environment with minimal safety/health hazard potential.

Travel Requirements

Up to 25% travel likely.

Pay Range (USD)

156/k-212/k

Pay Transparency Statement

The salary range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum for salary for this position. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, internal equity, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the range during the hiring process.

Additional Compensation - ICP

Hired applicant will be eligible to participate in the Company’s Incentive Compensation Program.

Benefits

Employees are eligible for medical, dental, vision, short and long-term disability, and basic life insurance as well as pre-tax spending accounts. Employees are also able to enroll in the company's 401k plan and are eligible for the Non-Contributory Retirement Contribution. In addition to the benefits discussed above, the company offers the following voluntary benefits: Critical Illness Insurance, Accident Insurance, Identify Theft Protection, Enhanced Legal Services, Auto and Home Insurance, Pet Insurance, Commuter Benefits, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Educational Assistance.

Paid Time Off

Employees will receive paid holidays and 120 hours of PTO annually and up to 3 weeks paid family leave. The above statements describe the general nature and level of work only. The statements do not represent an exhaustive list of required responsibilities and skills. Other duties may be added or this job description may be amended at any time. This job description does not alter an employee's at-will employment status or create an employment agreement or contract, implied or otherwise.

Originally posted on Himalayas