Role: TPS Lead Engineer

Shield the vehicle. Defy the plasma. Bring the hardware home. You define the physical boundary between survival and destruction.

Mission Overview

At AlgoForge Aerospace, reusability is an absolute mandate, not a secondary goal. As the Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) Lead, you are responsible for ensuring the AF-Series launch vehicles survive the searing heat of hypersonic reentry.

You are the ultimate barrier between our primary composite airframe and the destructive plasma of the atmosphere. Your mandate is to engineer advanced, flight-weight TPS architectures that require zero refurbishment between flights, enabling high-cadence orbital operations.

Operational Objectives

Take extreme ownership of the vehicle's thermal shield, architecting advanced reusable TPS (C-C, C-SiC, TUFI tiles) and targeted ablators for peak heating zones.

Execute rigorous aero-thermal load analyses to define thermal margins, utilizing high-fidelity CFD and Thermal solvers (ANSYS, Fluent, Star-CCM+).

Drive aggressive material qualification campaigns, leading high-enthalpy arc-jet testing to characterize ablation rates and thermal soak-back.

Collaborate intimately with the Structures team to integrate TPS directly onto the primary carbon-composite airframe without compromising dry mass.

Pioneer automated inspection and rapid recertification protocols, ensuring the heat shield is flight-ready within a 24-hour turnaround window.

Mission Prerequisites

BS/MS/PhD in Aerospace Engineering, Materials Science, or Mechanical Engineering with a proven track record in high-temperature R&D.

Deep, hands-on expertise with extreme-environment composites (Carbon-Carbon, Ceramic Matrix Composites) and advanced insulation blankets.

Uncompromising mastery of heat transfer (conduction, convection, radiation), hypersonic aerothermodynamics, and plasma physics.

Direct experience executing material test campaigns in arc-jet facilities or high-temperature wind tunnels.

Expertise in industry-standard thermal analysis suites (Thermal Desktop, SINDA/FLUINT, or advanced custom Python solvers).

— Deployment Benefits —

Technical Authority

Total ownership of the vehicle's survival boundary.

Reusability Mandate

Engineer the materials that make rapid turnaround a reality.

Arc-Jet Access

Burn things up in high-enthalpy plasma test facilities.

Elite Leadership

Build and command a dedicated team of extreme-environment metallurgists.

Position Intelligence

Department

Structures & Materials

Location

Bengaluru, India

Openings

1 Position Available

Domain

Aerothermodynamics

Environment

Hypersonic Plasma

Status: Critical Lead Hire

Mission Parameters

Hardware First

Work on real propulsion hardware, not just slide decks or concept art.

Elite Team

Small, highly technical unit with direct ownership of critical systems.

High Impact

Your decisions materially shape the vehicle architecture and company trajectory.

No Hype

Focused purely on physics, testing, and execution. We build, we launch.

Candidate Application

Applying for: Thermal Protection Systems Lead