Senior Computational Geomechanics Scientist

Quest Energy Group • Houston, TX

21h • Onsite

About The Position

Quest Energy Group is representing an established engineering software company seeking a Ph.D.-level scientist to advance the computational engine behind a commercial hydraulic-fracture simulator. This is a long-term strategic opportunity within a small, highly specialized team, with a meaningful voice in technical decisions and close collaboration with experienced subject-matter experts. The role directly influences software used to address complex field-development challenges.

The scientist will develop, validate, maintain, and modernize numerical methods and scientific code for modeling hydraulic-fracture growth and interaction. The work combines computational geomechanics, fracture mechanics, finite-element methods, and scientific software development. Success requires translating mathematical formulations and fracture physics into reliable simulation code, backed by direct industry experience developing hydraulic-fracture simulation capabilities.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in computational mechanics, geomechanics, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, petroleum engineering, applied mathematics, or a closely related discipline.
• At least five years of direct, hands-on industry experience developing, validating, and enhancing FEM code or other numerical methods for hydraulic-fracture simulation.
• Expert knowledge of geomechanics, fracture mechanics, and finite-element methods.
• Substantial experience modeling hydraulic-fracture initiation, propagation, and interaction.
• Deep understanding of coupled fluid-solid mechanics, nonlinear numerical methods, numerical linear algebra, discretization, convergence, stability, and error control.
• Strong scientific-programming skills in at least one compiled language and the ability to contribute effectively within a mature engineering codebase.
• Demonstrated ability to formulate mathematical models and implement accurate, efficient, maintainable scientific software.
• A strong publication, dissertation, or software-development record relevant to computational geomechanics or fracture simulation.
• Academic research alone, or experience limited to operating commercial simulation packages, does not satisfy the required industry development experience.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with multi-cluster, multi-stage, or multi-well hydraulic-fracture simulation.
• Experience with stress-shadow calculations, limited-entry effects, fluid and proppant transport, reservoir coupling, or treatment-history matching.
• Experience with C++, modern Fortran, Python, MATLAB, or comparable scientific-computing environments.
• Experience with parallel computing, GPU acceleration, domain decomposition, advanced preconditioning, or adaptive meshing.
• Experience moving research algorithms into tested, commercially supported software.

Responsibilities

• Develop and improve numerical formulations for coupled fluid flow, rock deformation, fracture opening, height growth, and propagation.
• Advance models for interacting fractures, including stress shadowing, cluster competition, stage sequencing, and well-to-well interference.
• Maintain and modernize an established simulation codebase while protecting its accuracy, reliability, and continuity.
• Improve solver performance, convergence, numerical stability, scalability, and memory efficiency.
• Evaluate and implement methods involving sparse matrices, preconditioning, meshing, and parallel computing.
• Build verification, validation, benchmarking, and regression-testing workflows.
• Collaborate with engineering and software colleagues to turn research and field observations into commercially supported simulation capabilities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree