Sr. Manager, Engines Structural Loads & Dynamic Environments

Application close date:
Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the requisition is closed.

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

This role is part of the Blue Origin Engines business unit, where our focus is the design, development, manufacturing, and testing of engines and propulsion systems. Built for multiple uses, our family of engines is powering the next generation of rockets for commercial, civil, national security, and human spaceflight.

This role is part of the Blue Origin Engines business unit, where our focus is the design, development, manufacturing, and testing of engines and propulsion systems. Built for multiple uses, our family of engines is powering the next generation of rockets for commercial, civil, national security, and human spaceflight.

As Senior Manager of Structural Loads and Dynamic Environments for Engines, you will lead a team of loads and dynamics analysts who support all engine programs at Blue - serving every vehicle customer that integrates and flies Blue Origin engines, including New Glenn, lunar missions, and others. Your team is responsible for decomposing launch vehicle and payload environments, authoring engine loads databooks, deriving engine component levels from test data, developing system finite element models (FEM), support in-house and external component development, qualification, and flight acceptance testing, and support vehicle launch operations.

You will be expected to provide technical leadership across the team’s scope while engaging technically in a selective, deep-dive manner when needed. The team’s expertise spans structural loads, dynamic environments and component testing, acoustics, and modal testing - and you will help integrate these capabilities to generate trustworthy environments and requirements that programs can execute against.

Because the team is geographically distributed across multiple physical locations, you must be able to lead effectively with strong communication, alignment, and execution across time zones and sites.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

- Lead a multi-program Structural Loads & Dynamic Environments organization

- Own the execution plan for supporting engine programs across development, qualification, production/rate, and flight-support phases (as applicable).
- Ensure deliverables (load cases, derived requirements, and supporting technical artifacts) meet internal standards and program needs.

- Provide technical leadership and set direction

- Establish and maintain technical approaches, standards, and review practices for structural loads and dynamic environment definition.
- Ensure consistent assumptions, interface definitions, and documentation quality across programs and customers.
- Be capable of engaging technically at a high level – reviewing work, resolving technical disagreement, and guiding tradeoffs – without needing to be the primary hands-on contributor in every sub-area.

- Engage selectively in complex technical issues

- Partner with Design Responsible Engineers, structural analysis, test engineers, and systems analysts to close technically difficult problems such as:

- environment translation into requirements,
- load exceedance / margin concerns,
- model-to-test correlation gaps,
- resonance/modal sensitivity and dynamic amplification pathways,
- acoustics and vibration drivers that impact durability or interface loads.

- Drive verification, correlation, and closure

- Ensure the team’s analyses are appropriately supported by test inputs/outputs where available and that correlation/verification activities are planned, executed, and closed effectively.
- Lead technical reviews and ensure risks are documented, owned, communicated, and mitigated.

- Manage technical risk and communicate impacts

- Identify and mitigate structural/dynamic risks and opportunities; communicate implications clearly to program leadership.
- Track technical actions through closure and maintain strong traceability from requirements back to environment assumptions and evidence.

- Collaborate across interfaces

- Work with multidisciplinary teams to ensure accurate event timing, boundary conditions, interface assumptions, and vehicle/engine coupling considerations are captured.

- Lead and develop a geographically diverse team

- Hire, develop, and lead a high-performing team of engineers and analysts across multiple locations.
- Coach technical growth, reinforce a culture of rigor and accountability, and enable consistent delivery across programs.

Minimum Qualifications

- B.S. degree in engineering (or equivalent technical discipline).
- 7+ years of experience in aerospace structural analysis and/or structural dynamics (including vibration/acoustics and/or correlation to test) for flight hardware.
- 3+ years of project and/or people management experience.
- Demonstrated ability to provide technical leadership across a range of structural/dynamic disciplines (e.g., launch vehicle coupled loads analysis, structural loads, dynamic environment definition, acoustics, and/or modal testing/correlation) and to make sound engineering judgments based on evidence.
- Demonstrated ability to engage technically in reviews and discussions - able to “go deep” selectively as needed to resolve issues.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to align and lead across time zones and sites.
- Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

Preferred Qualifications

- 10+ years of experience in structural dynamics, vibration environments, acoustics, modal test/correlation, and coupled structural load development for aerospace/spaceflight systems.
- Experience with the following commercial software tools: HYPERMESH, ANSYS, NASTRAN DMAP, ATA’s iMAT (MATLAB Toolbox), PYTHON, FORTRAN
- Experience with instrumentation (Accelerometers, Strain Gauges, pressure transducers etc.), data acquisition systems, and signal processing
- 5+ years of project and/or people management experience
- Experience supporting engine integration into launch vehicles and/or coupled engine–vehicle dynamic considerations.
- Familiarity with model-based verification and correlation workflows, including assumptions, boundary condition sensitivity, and evidence-based closure of correlation gaps.
- Track record of building and scaling technical teams that support multiple customers/programs simultaneously.
- Experience operating in a rigorous verification/qualification environment with strong documentation and technical governance.

Base Pay Range for:
CA applicants is $183,807.00 - $257,328.75
WA applicants is $183,807.00 - $257,328.75

Other site ranges may differ

Culture Statement

Don’t meet all desired requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single desired qualification. At Blue Origin, we are dedicated to building an authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every desired qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

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