Turbomachinery Tech Lead

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.

As part of our turbomachinery development branch, you will serve as the technical authority for turbomachinery products — owning the technical development roadmap, setting performance baselines, and establishing the design processes and analytical rigor the team designs to. You will work closely with the Branch Lead to baseline products for each lifecycle phase and product evolution, ensuring that turbomachinery design decisions are informed by and inform system-level performance and operability. This is the key technical decision-making role for turbomachinery — not a management role, but a hands-on technical architecture role that requires deep analysis capability combined with the judgment to set standards, adjudicate trades, and represent the branch as its technical voice in system-level forums.

We are looking for someone to apply their technical expertise, leadership skills, and commitment to quality to positively impact safe human spaceflight. Passion for our mission and vision is required!

Special Mentions

- Relocation provided
- Travel expected up to 25% of the time

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

- Serve as the technical authority for turbomachinery products from concept through qualification and production.
- Own the turbomachinery technical development roadmap — defining the sequence of trades, analyses, and decisions required to mature each product.
- Establish turbomachinery design guidelines, key design parameters (KDPs), and margin requirements for each technical discipline.
- Define analysis methods, validation rigor, and documentation expectations appropriate to each lifecycle phase.
- Adjudicate turbomachinery architecture trades: staging, speed, machine type, rotor support, seal selection, and configuration.
- Own the bidirectional interface between turbomachinery design and system performance — how turbomachinery design conditions and performance targets affect system operability limits (steady-state and transient), and how system ConOps affect turbomachinery function, performance, and reliability.
- Identify turbomachinery-driven constraints on system operability and work with systems engineers to resolve or accommodate them.
- Work with the Branch Lead to baseline turbomachinery products at each lifecycle gate and define technical content and success criteria for design reviews.
- Own the turbomachinery performance baseline — the predictions, margins, and validated models that constitute the technical basis for each product.
- Perform or direct analysis across the core turbomachinery disciplines: meanline aerodynamic design, CFD, secondary flow and seal modeling, structural analysis, dynamic loading and forced response, and rotordynamic analysis.
- Establish the margins required for safe designs in each discipline and enforce their application.
- Define the correlation basis, property databases, and validation anchors the team uses — require 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; contribute technical artifacts to subsystem and program gated reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR, MRR, TRR).

Minimum Qualifications

- M.S. in Mechanical Engineering or Aerospace Engineering, with emphasis on turbomachinery, fluid mechanics, or thermodynamics.
- 10+ years of experience in turbomachinery design and analysis for aerospace propulsion systems (turbopumps, gas turbines, or power turbines).
- 5+ years with technical decision-making authority over multi-discipline turbomachinery development.
- Ability to perform or critically evaluate analysis in: meanline aerodynamic design, CFD, secondary flow and seal modeling, structural analysis (static and fatigue), dynamic loading and forced response (Campbell diagrams, modal analysis), and rotordynamics.
- Understanding of margins required for safe turbomachinery designs in each of these 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 taking turbomachinery products from concept through hardware with personal accountability for the technical baseline.
- Proficiency with commercial analysis tools (ANSYS suite or equivalent) and scripting for analysis automation (Python preferred).
- Familiarity with industry standards, including but not limited to relevant AIAA/AGMA design practices.
- Experience working in cross-disciplinary engineering teams.
- A track record of taking ownership, showing resilience in the face of challenges, and consistently delivering results.

Preferred Qualifications

- 15+ years of relevant industry experience.
- Experience with rocket propulsion turbomachinery (LOX/LH2, LOX/RP-1, LOX/CH4, or similar).
- Experience with closed-loop cycle turbomachinery designs and systems.
- Familiarity with additive manufacturing for turbomachinery components (blisks, impellers, housings).
- Experience with non-traditional rotor support systems (dry gas seals, hydrostatic bearings, foil bearings).
- Experience with transient operability analysis — 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 to adopt — modern AI-assisted engineering tools (e.g., LLM-based design / analysis / scripting assistants integrated into the daily development environment).

Base Pay Range for:
WA applicants is $169,624.00 - $237,473.25

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.

Export Control Regulations

Applicants for employment at Blue Origin must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e. current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

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