Structural Analyst

Job description

# ructural Analysis & Test Engineer **Structural Analysis | Dynamics & Environmental Test | Hardware Qualification** | | | | --- | --- | | **Location** | Orange County, California | | **Employment Type** | Full-time | | **Department** | Engineering | | **Compensation** | 125,000–125,000–165,000 base salary, plus equity and benefits | | **Eligibility** | U.S. citizenship required; must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance | ## About Tiberius Aerospace Tiberius Aerospace is a cutting-edge aerospace and defense company delivering advanced, mission-critical technologies for government and private-sector customers. We develop high-performance aerospace systems, secure engineering solutions, and complex hardware built for demanding operational environments. Tiberius is scaling quickly and is seeking engineers who combine analytical rigor with a hands-on approach to building, testing, and qualifying hardware. Our teams move from concept to real hardware, test, and deployment with the speed and discipline required for high-consequence systems. ## The Role Tiberius Aerospace is seeking a hands-on **Structural Analysis & Test Engineer** to evaluate and validate the structural integrity, durability, and environmental survivability of mechanical assemblies and electronic hardware. This role is analysis-forward, with direct ownership of structural verification and physical test support. You will translate system requirements and mission environments into component-level loads, analysis cases, verification plans, test conditions, and acceptance criteria. Your work will span static strength, fatigue, modal response, random vibration, shock, thermal-structural interaction, and qualification of flight-relevant hardware. The ideal candidate is equally capable of building a credible finite-element model, checking it with first-principles engineering, defining a test approach, instrumenting hardware, interpreting the data, and turning results into better design decisions. ## What You’ll Do ### Structural Analysis & Verification - Develop and maintain load flowdowns from system requirements to subsystems, assemblies, and components. - Define load cases, interface loads, boundary conditions, factors of safety, margins of safety, and verification approaches appropriate to the hardware and operating environment. - Perform static structural analysis of metallic structures, joints, fasteners, housings, electronic enclosures, printed circuit boards, and electromechanical assemblies using hand calculations and finite element analysis. - Evaluate stress, deformation, stiffness, buckling, joint integrity, contact behavior, and structural margins. - Develop, execute, and maintain FEA models, including meshing, material definition, contacts, preload, boundary conditions, load application, and results interpretation. - Validate numerical results using hand calculations, simplified models, and sound engineering judgment. - Assess high-cycle fatigue life for metallic components and electronic hardware, including printed circuit boards, solder joints, component leads, and interconnects. - Perform modal, frequency-response, random-vibration, transient-shock, and time-domain dynamic analyses to evaluate dynamic response, load amplification, and hardware survivability. - Evaluate thermal-structural interaction, including thermal-expansion mismatch, temperature gradients, thermally induced stress, and temperature-dependent material behavior. - Support nonlinear analysis involving contact, preload, plasticity, and transient response when required. ### Test Planning, Execution & Correlation - Develop structural verification, qualification, and acceptance-test plans for static, fatigue, vibration, shock, and combined thermal-mechanical environments. - Define test conditions, instrumentation plans, procedures, success criteria, and acceptance criteria that trace directly to engineering requirements. - Design or support the design of test fixtures, accounting for fixture stiffness, modal behavior, dynamics, and influence on measured results. - Support test execution, including hardware setup, instrumentation installation, data-acquisition configuration, troubleshooting, and post-test inspection. - Select, install, and use strain gauges, accelerometers, thermocouples, load cells, displacement sensors, and associated data-acquisition systems. - Process and interpret strain, acceleration, force, displacement, and temperature data using MATLAB, Python, or equivalent tools. - Correlate finite-element models with modal, strain, vibration, shock, fatigue, and thermal-test data. - Investigate failures, unexpected results, and analysis-to-test discrepancies; identify root causes and recommend design improvements. ### Cross-Functional Hardware Ownership - Work closely with Mechanical, Electrical, Systems, Manufacturing, Quality, and Test teams throughout the hardware-development lifecycle. - Translate analysis and test results into clear, actionable design guidance for engineers, technicians, and program leadership. - Participate in design reviews and communicate structural risk, verification status, margins, discrepancies, and recommended actions. - Support prototype builds, environmental qualification, flight-hardware integration, and production-readiness activities. - Support manufacturing and supplier partners with structural disposition, design-for-manufacturing, and design-for-assembly decisions. - Prepare clear technical reports, analysis packages, test procedures, verification evidence, and milestone-review materials. - Capture and apply lessons from analysis and test to future designs, requirements, verification plans, and test methods. ## What You’ll Bring - B.S. or higher in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Engineering Mechanics, or a related discipline. - **3+ years of experience** performing structural analysis and supporting physical testing of mechanical, electronic, or electromechanical hardware. - Strong foundation in solid mechanics, structural dynamics, fatigue, vibration, shock, and thermal stress. - Proficiency with finite-element tools such as **ANSYS, Abaqus, NASTRAN, FEMAP**, or equivalent, including model setup, meshing, contacts, boundary conditions, and results interpretation. - Demonstrated ability to validate simulation results through hand calculations, simplified models, and practical engineering judgment. - Experience assessing high-cycle fatigue in metallic structures and electronic assemblies, with an understanding of their distinct failure mechanisms. - Familiarity with modal response, random vibration, power spectral density (**PSD**), shock response spectra (**SRS**), frequency response, and time-domain dynamic analysis. - Ability to translate system-level requirements into component loads, analysis cases, test conditions, and verification requirements. - Hands-on experience with strain gauges, accelerometers, thermocouples, load cells, and data-acquisition systems. - Proficiency with MATLAB, Python, or equivalent tools for engineering calculations, automation, and test-data processing. - Strong technical writing, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills. - U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance. ## Preferred Qualifications - Experience with missile, munition, air vehicle, propulsion, aerospace, or defense hardware exposed to severe mechanical and thermal environments. - Experience evaluating printed-circuit-board dynamics, component attachment, solder-joint fatigue, and the structural effects of potting, underfill, or conformal coating. - Experience developing qualification and acceptance test programs. - Experience with nonlinear structural analysis, including contact, preload, plasticity, and transient dynamic response. - Familiarity with fatigue-life methods, including S–N curves, mean-stress corrections, and cumulative-damage assessment. - Experience correlating finite-element models with modal, strain, vibration, shock, and thermal-test data. - Experience with environmental-test standards and laboratory test execution. - Active U.S. government security clearance. ## What Success Looks Like You can take a system requirement or operational environment and turn it into a credible structural-verification strategy. You understand that an analysis is only valuable when its assumptions are sound, its results are independently checked, and its conclusions are validated against real hardware. You bring disciplined technical judgment to ambiguous problems, flag risk early, and drive analysis-to-test correlation until the team has a defensible answer. You do not simply report whether hardware passed or failed—you help the team understand why, what must change, and how to deliver a more robust design. ## Growth Opportunity As Tiberius Aerospace advances from development into qualification and production, this role will take on increasing ownership of structural-verification strategy, analysis-and-test correlation, and qualification of mission-critical aerospace hardware. The position offers a direct path toward senior technical leadership in structural analysis, environmental qualification, and hardware verification. ## Compensation & Benefits Tiberius Aerospace offers competitive base compensation, equity participation, comprehensive health benefits, and a 401(k). Specific compensation within the posted range will be determined based on experience, technical depth, and the needs of the business. ## Equal Opportunity Employer Tiberius Aerospace is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to maintaining a workplace free from discrimination and harassment. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Applicants who require a reasonable accommodation during the application process may contact **[kburchstead@tiberius.com](mailto:kburchstead@tiberius.com)**. Tiberius Aerospace participates in E-Verify.