Description

About Sandia

Sandia National Laboratories is the nation's premier science and engineering lab for national security and technology innovation, with teams of specialists focused on cutting-edge work in a broad array of areas. Some of the main reasons we love our jobs:

• Challenging work with amazing impact that contributes to security, peace, and freedom worldwide
• Extraordinary co-workers
• Some of the best tools, equipment, and research facilities in the world
• Career advancement and enrichment opportunities
• Flexible work arrangements for many positions include 9/80 (work 80 hours every two weeks, with every other Friday off) and 4/10 (work 4 ten-hour days each week) compressed workweeks, part-time work, and telecommuting (a mix of onsite work and working from home)
• Generous vacation, strong medical and other benefits, competitive 401k, learning opportunities, relocation assistance and amenities aimed at creating a solid work/life balance*

World-changing technologies. Life-changing careers. Learn more about Sandia at: http://www.sandia.gov

*These benefits vary by job classification.

What Your Job Will Be Like

We are seeking a R&D S&E, Aerospace Engineering to perform concept development and analysis work within AFSIM and a Sandia custom-developed tool called Ascent. This role would focus on assessing performance and requirements of missiles, sensors, kill chains, and other related systems for strike and defense applications in heavily contested / defended environments. Our largest focus area is assessments of hypersonic strike weapons and defense against hypersonic weapons. Your analyses will inform needs, requirements, and concepts for a variety of sponsors across the DOE and DoD.

On any given day, you may be called on to:

• Perform trade-space analyses in AFSIM and/or Ascent to assess performance across variables of interest for:
  • Weapon system survivability (ability to evade detection and/or intercept)
  • Weapon system effectiveness (coupling of navigation, lethality, survivability, etc.)
  • Kill chain effectiveness (ability of defenses to detect, track, communicate, and engage targets)
• Set up mission-representative scenarios in AFSIM and/or Ascent
  • Engage with armed services, intelligence communities, and domain experts to learn about scenarios of interest and existing techniques
  • Build models of platforms (missiles, directed energy systems, satellites, etc.)
  • Build out multi-platform engagement scenarios with weapons and kill chains (radars / other sensors in all domains, comms layers, BMC2, launchers, missiles, etc.)
• Implement existing and novel algorithms into AFSIM and/or Ascent for missile engagement modeling, including algorithms for:
  • Generating 6 DOF flight algorithms (trajectory generation, navigation & guidance solutions)
  • Fire Control, weapon task assignment, and tracking algorithms (Kalman Filters, UKF, etc.)
• Develop plug-ins for AFSIM or Ascent using C++ and/or Python
  • Including integration of other existing tools or plug-ins
• Work with domain experts in aero, GNC, lethality, sensors, etc. to:
  • Implement and run representative models
  • Develop novel concepts, derive requirements, and write proposal

Due to the nature of the work, this candidate must be able to work onsite.

Salary Range

$117,500 - $235,700

*Salary range is estimated, and actual salary will be determined after consideration of the selected candidate's experience and qualifications, and application of any approved geographic salary differential.

Qualifications We Require

• A Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline and five (5) years of directly relevant experience, or an equivalent combination of directly relevant education and engineering or scientific experience that demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform independent research and development.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a DOE Q and SCI clearances

Qualifications We Desire

The ideal Aerospace Engineer candidate for Sandia National Laboratories will in addition possess the following:

• Graduate degree in Aerospace Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering, or a highly related field where an independent research project was a graduation requirement (e.g., independent project, thesis, or dissertation).
• Experience in applied aerodynamics, flight mechanics, or trajectory simulation with application to the design, modeling, simulation, optimization, and analysis of aerospace flight systems.
• Experience with the capabilities, use, and application of MATLAB®, Simulink®, Python, C/C++, or other modern programming languages and repositories in technical analysis/computing and software development.
• Proven ability to work and communicate effectively in a collaborative and interdisciplinary team environment.
• Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced/schedule driven environment.

Also, for this posting we are seeking individuals with the following experience:

• 5+ years of work experience in AFSIM modeling missile systems and kill chains
• Ability to develop code in Python and C++
• Experience writing AFSIM plug-ins
• Experience with version control, verification and validation
• High-level familiarity with most of the following:
  • Missile systems and components
  • Kill chain systems and components
  • Aerodynamics
  • GNC
  • Orbital Mechanics
  • Sensors (EOIR, Radar)
  • Tracking and filtering algorithms
• Strong background in one of the following:
  • Kill chain systems and components
  • Sensors (EOIR, Radar)
  • Tracking and filtering algorithms
• Ability to develop scripts or code
• Ability to communicate technical results to high-level decision makers
• Ability to work well in multi-disciplinary teams and engage with SMEs
• Ability to engage with potential funding sponsors and write proposals.
• Ability to hold a Q and SCI clearances
• Experience with HPCs
• Experience working on multi-disciplinary teams with SMEs to develop requirements and concepts
• Experience engaging with potential sponsors and writing proposals
• Current clearance holder

About Our Team

Advanced Concepts Engineering, 5471, does early-phase concept development for advanced missiles, sensors, and related systems to find designs that are survivable and meet mission performance requirements. We are a multi-disciplinary team that collaborates with experts from across Sandia to perform our conceptual design and analysis work. Our team develops and uses physics-based tools, such as RACE, Ascent, and AFSIM. We leverage RACE as a part of rapid exploration of new vehicle designs, including internal and external layouts. We use Ascent and AFSIM for helping our scrimmage and mission analyses to discover how new vehicles, technologies, and/or mission concepts will perform in heavily contested future environments. These scrimmage and mission analyses include evaluating detection, tracking, engaging, and other kill chain algorithms to explore performance of both U.S. and adversary systems.

Posting Duration

This posting will be open for application submissions for a minimum of seven (7) calendar days, including the 'posting date'. Sandia reserves the right to extend the posting date at any time.

Security Clearance

Sandia is required by DOE to conduct a pre-employment drug test and background review that includes checks of personal references, credit, law enforcement records, and employment/education verifications. Applicants for employment need to be able to obtain and maintain a DOE Q-level security clearance, which requires U.S. citizenship. If you hold more than one citizenship (i.e., of the U.S. and another country), your ability to obtain a security clearance may be impacted.

Applicants offered employment with Sandia are subject to a federal background investigation to meet the requirements for access to classified information or matter if the duties of the position require a DOE security clearance. Substance abuse or illegal drug use, falsification of information, criminal activity, serious misconduct or other indicators of untrustworthiness can cause a clearance to be denied or terminated by DOE, resulting in the inability to perform the duties assigned and subsequent termination of employment.

EEO

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status and any other protected class under state or federal law.

NNSA Requirements for MedPEDs

If you have a Medical Portable Electronic Device (MedPED), such as a pacemaker, defibrillator, drug-releasing pump, hearing aids, or diagnostic equipment and other equipment for measuring, monitoring, and recording body functions such as heartbeat and brain waves, if employed by Sandia National Laboratories you may be required to comply with NNSA security requirements for MedPEDs.

If you have a MedPED and you are selected for an on-site interview at Sandia National Laboratories, there may be additional steps necessary to ensure compliance with NNSA security requirements prior to the interview date.