Turbomachinery Tech Lead

BLUE ORIGIN • Huntsville, AL

14d • $169,624 - $237,473

About The Position

The Turbomachinery Tech Lead is the hands-on technical authority for turbomachinery products in Blue Origin’s Engines business unit, which designs, develops, manufactures, and tests engines and propulsion systems. This is a technical architecture and decision-making role rather than a management position. The role owns the turbomachinery technical development roadmap, sets performance baselines, and establishes design processes and analytical standards. Working closely with the Branch Lead, the Tech Lead baselines products at each lifecycle phase and ensures turbomachinery design decisions account for—and inform—system-level performance and operability.

The role spans product development from concept through qualification and production. It includes defining design guidelines, key design parameters, margins, analysis and validation methods, and documentation expectations; adjudicating architecture trades; and maintaining the performance baseline, including predictions, margins, and validated models. The Tech Lead performs or directs analysis across core turbomachinery disciplines, represents the branch in program-level reviews and trade studies, mentors engineers, and supports hardware build, testing, and anomaly investigation. The position includes relocation assistance and travel of up to 25% of the time.

Requirements

• M.S. in Mechanical Engineering or Aerospace Engineering, emphasizing turbomachinery, fluid mechanics, or thermodynamics.
• At least 10 years of experience in turbomachinery design and analysis for aerospace propulsion systems, such as turbopumps, gas turbines, or power turbines.
• At least 5 years with technical decision-making authority over multi-discipline turbomachinery development.
• Ability to perform or critically evaluate meanline aerodynamic design, CFD, secondary flow and seal modeling, structural analysis (static and fatigue), dynamic loading and forced response (including Campbell diagrams and modal analysis), and rotordynamics.
• Understanding of margins required for safe turbomachinery designs across the relevant disciplines.
• Knowledge of how turbomachinery performance characteristics propagate into system-level behavior and vice versa.
• Demonstrated experience establishing design processes, analysis standards, and margin frameworks for turbomachinery hardware programs.
• Track record of taking turbomachinery products from concept through hardware, with personal accountability for the technical baseline.
• Proficiency with commercial analysis tools such as the ANSYS suite or equivalent, and scripting for analysis automation; Python preferred.
• Familiarity with industry standards, including relevant AIAA/AGMA design practices.
• Experience working in cross-disciplinary engineering teams.
• Track record of taking ownership, showing resilience in the face of challenges, and consistently delivering results.
• Passion for Blue Origin’s mission and vision.

Nice To Haves

• At least 15 years of relevant industry experience.
• Experience with rocket propulsion turbomachinery, such as LOX/LH2, LOX/RP-1, or LOX/CH4.
• Experience with closed-loop cycle turbomachinery designs and systems.
• Familiarity with additive manufacturing for turbomachinery components, such as blisks, impellers, and housings.
• Experience with non-traditional rotor support systems, such as dry gas seals, hydrostatic bearings, and foil bearings.
• Experience with transient operability analysis, including spool-up, load rejection, and thermal transients and their effects on turbomachinery reliability and life.
• Familiarity with NASA GFSSP, Sinda/FLUINT, or equivalent flow network solvers.
• Experience with parametric cost modeling and design-to-cost trades.
• Prior experience at a rocket propulsion or gas turbine OEM.
• Demonstrated use of, or genuine enthusiasm for adopting, modern AI-assisted engineering tools such as LLM-based design, analysis, or scripting assistants integrated into daily development work.

Responsibilities

• Serve as technical authority for turbomachinery products from concept through qualification and production.
• Own the turbomachinery technical development roadmap, defining the trades, analyses, and decisions needed to mature each product.
• Establish turbomachinery design guidelines, key design parameters, and margin requirements for each technical discipline.
• Define analysis methods, validation rigor, and documentation expectations for each lifecycle phase.
• Adjudicate architecture trades involving staging, speed, machine type, rotor support, seals, and configuration.
• Own the bidirectional interface between turbomachinery design and system performance, including impacts on system operability and the effects of system ConOps on turbomachinery function, performance, and reliability.
• Identify turbomachinery-driven system operability constraints and work with systems engineers to resolve or accommodate them.
• Work with the Branch Lead to baseline products at each lifecycle gate and define technical content and success criteria for design reviews.
• Own the turbomachinery performance baseline, including predictions, margins, and validated models that form each product’s technical basis.
• Perform or direct analysis in meanline aerodynamic design, CFD, secondary flow and seal modeling, structural analysis, dynamic loading and forced response, and rotordynamics.
• Establish and enforce discipline-specific margins for safe designs.
• Define the correlation basis, property databases, and validation anchors used by the team, ensuring traceability to heritage data or published sources.
• Drive continuous improvement of analysis tools, methods, and automation.
• Represent the turbomachinery branch in program-level reviews, trade studies, and key decision points.
• Mentor engineers in turbomachinery fundamentals, engineering judgment, and the rationale behind design standards.
• Support hardware build, assembly, acceptance testing, and anomaly investigation; provide engineering dispositions for non-conforming turbomachinery hardware.
• Develop and maintain design requirements and documentation, and contribute technical artifacts to subsystem and program gated reviews, including SRR, PDR, CDR, MRR, and TRR.

Benefits

• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Basic and supplemental life insurance
• Paid parental leave
• Short- and long-term disability
• 401(k) with company match of up to 5%
• Education Support Program
• Stock options for regular employees working at least 20 hours per week
• Paid time off of up to four weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours
• Up to 14 company-paid holidays
• Potential eligibility for benefits and bonuses depending on role type and job level

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior