Staff Engineer Mechanical

RELOCATION ASSISTANCE: Relocation assistance may be available

CLEARANCE TYPE: None

TRAVEL: Yes, 10% of the Time

Description

At Northrop Grumman, our employees have incredible opportunities to work on revolutionary systems that impact people’s lives around the world today, and for generations to come. Our pioneering and inventive spirit has enabled us to be at the forefront of many technological advancements in our nation’s history – from the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to stealth bombers, to landing on the moon. We look for people who have bold new ideas, courage and a pioneering spirit to join forces to invent the future, and have fun along the way. Our culture thrives on intellectual curiosity, cognitive diversity and bringing your whole self to work — and we have an insatiable drive to do what others think is impossible. Our employees are not only part of history, they’re making history.

Job Description – Staff Thermal Technologist – Integrated Thermal Systems

The Mission Enabling Products business unit, an organization within Northrop Grumman’s Payload and Ground Systems (PGS) division, is a leading designer, producer, and supplier of spacecraft components and subsystems that power and enable satellites of all classes.  The portfolio of products includes solar power systems, propulsion systems, bus structures, thermal control systems, deployable systems / antennas, optical and laser systems. 

The Integrated Thermal Systems Operating Unit is the world leader in two-phase thermal management of spacecraft and has more than 30 years of experience designing and manufacturing space-qualified products for various government, military, civil and commercial customers (Legacy Swales Aerospace).  We have the broadest portfolio of thermal solutions in the business and more flight heritage than any of our competitors.  We tackle the industry’s most challenging spacecraft thermal control problems and have the market differentiating capability of taking systems from concept, through design, thermal component fabrication, integration into honeycomb composite structure and through system level testing all on-site with no subcontractors.

Capabilities include design, manufacture, testing and integration of complete two-phase thermal-control systems such as heat pipes (-260 C to +175 C); heat pipe radiators and structural equipment panels; two-phase-loop heat pipes (LHPs); deployable radiator assemblies; mechanically pumped single phase liquid cooling, phase-change thermal storage materials (PCM); multi-layer insulation (MLI) blankets; cryogenic cooling applications; and integrated thermal composite structures.

Our business is growing.  We currently operate out of a stand-alone facility in Beltsville Maryland with plans to move to a new state of the art facility (currently under construction) in Hanover, Maryland in late 2024 / early 2025. 

Job Duties:

• Research, architects, and guide design / development of two-phase thermal control systems.  Adapts and applies new and existing thermal control technologies to unique and highly variable spacecraft with some non space applications.
• Analyze the performance of thermal systems using internally developed tools, thermal desktop and hand calculations.
• Review designs of thermal system to ensure that they will meet the requirements specified for the system.
• Develop testing requirements and procedures to verify the performance of thermal heat transfer systems and verify compliance to requirements.
• Conduct, oversee or supervise testing to verify the performance of various thermal systems.
• Work with manufacturing machining welding, product engineers writing manufacturing and processing instructions
• Partners with Business Development and Program Management to shape new opportunities and capture new business
• Develops and matures new thermal control methods and technologies to expand the product portfolio and keep pace with evolving technology / ahead of competition
• Mentor more junior members of the thermal technology team.

Basic Qualifications:

• 14+ years of direct mechanical/aerospace engineering experience with a Bachelor of Science degree within an applicable STEM discipline; 12+ years of mechanical/aerospace engineering with a Masters’ degree; 9+ years of mechanical/aerospace engineering with a PhD. 
• Education or experience must include basic thermodynamics, physics and fluid mechanics.
• Fundamental understanding of thermal system designs.
• Demonstrated ability to apply fundamental physics principles to understand and solve problems within applications, generate theoretical models of proposed solutions to generate predictions and ultimately correlate model predictions with physical hardware testing
• Ability to obtain a security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with two phase thermal control systems
• Graduate or PhD level thermodynamics, physics and/or fluid mechanics
• Aerospace hardware manufacturing and/or test experience

Salary Range: $149,900.00 – $224,900.00

The above salary range represents a general guideline; however, Northrop Grumman considers a number of factors when determining base salary offers such as the scope and responsibilities of the position and the candidate’s experience, education, skills and current market conditions.

Employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay. Annual bonuses are designed to reward individual contributions as well as allow employees to share in company results. Employees in Vice President or Director positions may be eligible for Long Term Incentives. In addition, Northrop Grumman provides a variety of benefits including health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, savings plan, Company paid holidays and paid time off (PTO) for vacation and/or personal business.

The application period for the job is estimated to be 20 days from the job posting date. However, this timeline may be shortened or extended depending on business needs and the availability of qualified candidates.

Northrop Grumman is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer, making decisions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected class. For our complete EEO/AA and Pay Transparency statement, please visit http://www.northropgrumman.com/EEO. U.S. Citizenship is required for all positions with a government clearance and certain other restricted positions.