Senior Propulsion Engineer - Combustion Devices (m/f/d)

Mission Brief

You will be a senior technical contributor within Combustion Devices, responsible for high-fidelity combustion CFD and the physical understanding required to design, assess and mature liquid rocket engine combustion hardware. You will apply reactive-flow simulation, combustion fundamentals and test correlation to injectors, preburners , gas generators, ignition systems and main combustion chambers, ensuring that designs are performant, stable, thermally robust and ready for manufacture and hot-fire testing.

Your Role in Our Space Mission:

• Own and execute CFD analyses of reacting flows in liquid rocket engine combustion devices, from model definition and meshing through solution, verification, validation and technical recommendation.
• Develop and apply premixed , partially premixed and non-premixed combustion models for rocket-relevant propellant systems and operating conditions.
• Perform steady and transient RANS/URANS and, where justified, scale-resolving simulations such as LES to investigate mixing, ignition, flame stabilisation, combustion efficiency and unsteady heat release.
• Model injector and chamber flows including atomisation, evaporation, multiphase effects, real-gas behaviour, conjugate heat transfer and wall heat flux where relevant to the design question.
• Assess combustion stability and operability, including flame dynamics, pressure oscillations, injector coupling, acoustic interaction, chugging and high-frequency instability risks.
• Build robust CFD workflows in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ and Ansys Fluent, including geometry preparation, meshing strategies, solver setup, automation, post-processing and model-quality documentation.
• Correlate simulations against component, cold-flow and hot-fire test data; quantify model uncertainty and clearly define the limits of predictive confidence.
• Translate CFD results into practical design decisions for injectors, chambers, preburners, gas generators, igniters, cooling concepts and combustion-device interfaces.
• Work closely with design, thermal, structures, materials, test, engine systems and manufacturing teams to converge combustion-device designs and resolve multidisciplinary issues.
• Plan analysis and validation activities, review work from colleagues and external partners, and contribute to technical reviews, development roadmaps and risk-retirement plans.
• Advance combustion modelling methods, engineering standards and reusable best practices across the Propulsion organisation.

Qualification Checklist

• MSc or PhD in aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, computational engineering or a comparable technical discipline.
• Typically 5-10 years of professional experience in rocket propulsion, with substantial hands‑on responsibility for combustion CFD and combustion‑device development.
• Deep knowledge of fundamental combustion physics, chemical kinetics, flame structure, turbulence‑chemistry interaction, ignition and extinction phenomena.
• Demonstrated experience modelling reactive premixed and non‑premixed flows under rocket‑engine‑relevant pressure, temperature and mixture‑ratio conditions.
• Advanced proficiency in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ and/or Ansys Fluent for complex reacting‑flow simulations; strong capability in meshing, solver selection, convergence assessment and post‑processing.
• Strong understanding of liquid rocket engine combustion devices, particularly injectors, preburners or gas generators, main combustion chambers, igniters and associated thermal environments.
• Experience with CFD verification and validation, mesh and time‑step sensitivity, uncertainty assessment and correlation to experimental or hot‑fire data.
• Proficiency in Python, MATLAB or a comparable language for automation, data reduction and engineering analysis.
• Strong technical ownership, first‑principles judgement, clear communication and professional fluency in English.

Bonus Skills

• Experience with LES or other scale‑resolving methods for combustion dynamics, instability and injector‑chamber coupling.
• Experience with spray combustion, atomisation, evaporation, real‑fluid or real‑gas thermodynamics, conjugate heat transfer, radiation or reacting multiphase flows.
• Experience supporting rocket‑engine hot‑fire campaigns, defining instrumentation needs and diagnosing combustion anomalies from test data.
• Experience developing custom models, user‑defined functions, reduced chemical mechanisms, HPC workflows or automated CFD pipelines.

Benefits

• Employee Participation Program: Share in our success through our virtual company share program
• 30 days of vacation: Enjoy the days off to relax and recharge
• Company pension plan: Secure your future with our company pension plan, featuring a 20% employer contribution after the probation period
• Subsidised lunch: Stay energised with delicious, subsidised lunches every day
• Rental clothing with laundry se