2026 Graduate - Hypersonics Engineer - Vehicle Design and Technologies

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory•Laurel, MD

8d•Onsite

About The Position

This role is for a graduate engineer who will be part of the Vehicle Design and Technologies Group, focusing on designing the future of hypersonic vehicles, missiles, UAVs, and roto-craft. The multidisciplinary team works across various vehicle design disciplines including propulsion, aerodynamics, thermal, advanced materials, mechanical, and structural engineering. The work involves investigating basic science and transitioning it into state-of-the-art vehicle technology to enable innovation and revolutionary new designs. Research will be applied to conceptualize, design, and prototype advanced vehicles and weapons to meet critical national and warfighter needs.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering
Strong communications and collaboration skills
Able to obtain Interim Secret level security clearance by your start date and can ultimately obtain Secret level clearance.
U.S. citizenship

Nice To Haves

Intern experience in the aerospace industry designing or evaluating vehicle performance
Demonstrated leadership skills

Responsibilities

Predict and model the aerodynamic characteristics of various air-vehicle configurations including hypersonic re-entry vehicles, supersonic and hypersonic air-breathing concepts, and subsonic fixed-wing or rotorcraft unmanned air vehicles (UAVs).
Perform multi-fidelity analysis using commercial and in-house CFD and thermal software in support of vehicle aerothermal design and analysis across various flow regimes from subsonic to hypersonic.
Plan and execute ground tests and design models for various wind tunnel and arcjet facilities. Conduct post-test analysis to validate numerical predictions then create and improve high fidelity models.
Design future conceptual vehicles, performing detailed multidisciplinary system analysis including integration with launch platforms.
Optimize hypersonic propulsion designs including inlet design, flowpath analysis, system integration, test, and evaluation.