Team Lead - Thermofluids Analysis

While other companies talk about it, we do it!

NEUTRON

Rocket Lab’s Neutron team is responsible for bringing our new large rocket Neutron and its launch and test sites to life. From designing and testing Neutron’s structures and components, to firing up its new Archimedes engines, to setting up Neutron’s launch pads and test sites across the United States, joining the Neutron team is your opportunity to help launch a new large rocket for the very first time.

TEAM LEAD - THERMOFLUIDS ANALYSIS

We're looking for a Team Lead to head up our Thermofluids Analysis team, taking ownership of all thermodynamics and fluid mechanics across our launch systems.

In this role, you'll lead a multidisciplinary team spanning Aeroscience, Thermal, and Propellant analysis, representing these domains to the program’s product-focused teams. You'll inform and direct concept-level trades around architecture, operation, and capability; evaluate systems for their performance, environments, and characteristics; and use those insights to shape requirements and drive risk posture across the program.

Beyond the technical, you'll be responsible for building and developing the team itself—mentoring and supporting your direct reports, identifying skills gaps, meeting resourcing needs, and ensuring the successful delivery of key strategic engineering projects. You'll also set the appropriate level of fidelity needed to make informed engineering decisions, develop and maintain the tools and capabilities that underpin the team's analyses, and engage stakeholders across the organisation to unlock progress.

This role is based in Auckland, New Zealand.

WHAT YOU'LL GET TO DO:

Leadership & Team Development

Manage, mentor, and develop your direct reports—providing coaching, timely feedback, and professional development opportunities while identifying skills gaps to drive cross-functional training

Ensure the successful delivery of key strategic engineering projects, negotiating resource and priority across the organization

Provide regular project status updates, conduct peer reviews, and produce qualification test levels through consistent application of approved margining approaches

Aeroscience

Generate aerotables and characterise vehicle performance—covering stability, control authority, loads, pressure distributions, and aerodynamic design of vehicle control surfaces

Perform, validate, and document CFD analyses of external flow across hypersonic, transonic and subsonic regimes, and characterise aerodynamic and heating environments, transients, and separation events

Model plumes and plume interactions (base heating, PIFS, impingement) and define re-entry architecture, including ballistic coefficients, ConOps, and compartment venting

Thermal

Own system thermal design across ground, flight, and in-space operations, including TPS response, compartment thermals, insulation, and component thermal modelling

Perform heat transfer simulations (conduction, convection, radiation) and characterise thermal environments, developing design guidelines and mitigations

Model HVAC and cavity conditioning (flow/temperature specification, pressure drop, flammability, cleanliness, humidity) and support payload integration and customer ITAs

Propellant

Own propellant delivery and management—covering temperatures and stratification, cavitation margin, transients, slosh, PMD design, settling, and in-space thermodynamics—and perform CFD of internal fluid systems (compressible and incompressible flow)

Address depletion, residuals, and utilisation control, and own tank pressurisation, including pressurant budgets, in-tank thermodynamics, and autogenous system sizing

Design RCS systems, including N2 budget, thruster specification, and flow modelling of valves and lines

Analysis & Data

Work closely with design and test engineers to iterate design concepts, determine test requirements, and demonstrate positive margins through numerical analysis, and physical test

Process and interpret ground test and flight data—confirming MPE bounds, detecting out-of-family results, and resolving sensor configuration issues

YOU'LL BRING THESE QUALIFICATIONS:

A degree in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering or similar field

5+ years industry experience, ideally from the Aerospace, Automotive, or Marine industries

A keen physics and first principles-based approach to problem solving

Experience with one or more industry standard CFD packages: Fluent, CFX, STAR-CCM+

Experience with one or more industry standard thermal modelling packages: Thermal Desktop, THERMICA, NX SST

Expertise in engineering programming, especially using Python (including Python packages numpy, pandas, scipy, matplotlib, etc.)

Demonstrated ability executing to changing deadlines in a high-pressure and fast-paced work environment

THESE QUALIFICATIONS WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE:

Experience with sensor selection and data post-processing/ interpretation (accelerometers, strain gauges, thermocouples etc.)

Experience using NX CAD and Teamcenter packages (or comparable industry standard packages) with emphasis on model interrogation and defeaturing for subsequent analysis

Experience in mentoring junior engineers

If the above sounds like you apply now!