Senior​/Principal R&D Mechanical Engineer - Aerodynamic Technology & Energy Systems, Hybrid

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

What Your Job Will Be Like

We are seeking a R&D Mechanical Engineer to work with a multi-disciplinary team to develop and apply high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics simulations of turbulent atmospheric and hydrodynamic flow interactions with airfoil structures and hydrodynamic simulations for novel tidal turbine technologies. The successful candidate will also work to improve understanding of how turbulence can impact efficiencies and surface erosion of energy generating equipment and trajectories of defense-related technologies.

The capabilities will be developed within the framework of an object-oriented, massively parallel, computational mechanics code.

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

• Work with a dynamic team of researchers, numerical methods developers, math model developers, and aero-structural energy analysts working to solve challenging multi-physics problems;
• Be assigned computational model and algorithmic development and implementation tasks, as well as tasks related to verification and validation of the simulation capability.
• Apply turbulence modeling capabilities to a variety of energy and national security research areas.

The selected applicant can work a combination of onsite and offsite work. The selected applicant must live within a reasonable distance for commuting to the assigned work location when necessary.

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.

• 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 L-level security

The ideal R&D S&E, Mechanical Engineering candidate for Sandia National Laboratories will in addition possess the following:

• Graduate degree in Mechanical Engineering or a highly related field where an independent research project was a graduation requirement (e.g., independent project, thesis, or dissertation).
• Experience with mechanical engineering and product realization in the NNSA complex.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams.

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

• Ph.D. in engineering, physics, applied mathematics or other relevant field
• Experience in in compressible flow CFD methods, mesh generation and turbulence modeling approaches (RANS, LES, DES, Hybrid RANS-LES etc.)
• Experience with fluid-dynamics modeling software, including OpenFAST, and the Exa Wind code stack.
• Experience in modeling aero and hydro turbine dynamics aerodynamics, atmospheric flows and fluid-structure interactions
• Experience with parallel programming (Shared and Distributed memory, GPU programming etc.)
• Demonstrated experience with distributed memory MPI programming
• Excellent C++ programming experience
• Experience with collaborative software design, development, and testing processes
• Application of statistical methods, artificial intelligence/machine learning, and data analytics, to rich experimental or computational data sources

The Aerodynamic Technology & Energy Systems department performs research and development in support of understanding airflow over surfaces, and applications that include innovative energy generating technologies. This department also has deep capabilities in aero-structural impacts that arise from operating these technologies, which include high accuracy instrumentation required for model validation, modeling and simulation of aero and hydro systems models, Machine Learning and AI for enhanced data analytics, composite material structural properties, advanced manufacturing of aero and hydro rotor…