This role will be within our Airframe team. It will be a unique and varied opportunity for the right person with compatible culture, skills, and experience to support the development of our sub-orbital spaceplane. Based on your skills, experience, and aptitude, the responsibilities you could be gifted with would be in full lifecycle engineering across topics such as aerodynamic design; structural design for manufacture (composite airframe & control surfaces/ sub-system mounts, interfaces & enclosures/ actuation linkages); Assembly, Integration and Testing; and flight operations.

Could this be the perfect job for you? Are you a talented flexible and adaptable problem solver? Are you driven, organised and a cross-function collaborative engineer? Have you had experience employing project engineering practices? Do you thrive on the challenges of working on complex design and manufacturing delivery focused problems across one or more of aerospace/ aviation/ automotive/ marine/ mechatronics or equivalent engineering fields? Take a look at our ideal fundamental and additional compatible candidate skills, capabilities and experience and apply if you feel up for this chance of a lifetime.

Fundamental responsibilities of this role:

• Take ownership of and lead major airframe product/subsystem project work packages
• Foster positive, collaborate coordination across multi-functional teams
• Design, analyse and test airframe components
• Perform design reviews with a strong focus on manufacturing principles
• Lead the procurement, manufacture, assembly and integration for your projects
• Produce compliance reports detailing the qualification of hardware
• Establish new, and improve existing processes or capabilities

Fundamental qualifications and experience needed:

· An appropriate qualification in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics or similar

· At least 5 years’ professional experience with complex systems, in one or more engineering fields such as aircraft, spacecraft, automotive, marine

· Proven experience in design for manufacture

· Proven ability to appropriately consider and trade off cost, schedule, performance and risk within project constraints

· Proficiency in 3D computer aided design (preferably Solidworks)

· Hands on mechanical manufacturing, assembly, integration and test experience

· Awareness and experience with quality control principles

· Experience working with and directing sub-contractors/ suppliers

· Excellent communication, organisational and reporting skills

· A positive, driven attitude with a team collaborative approach

Additional desired proven skills and experience in:

· Integrated project team management (Project Engineering)

· Mentorship and training of junior engineers

· Aerodynamic first principles design and analysis

· Aerodynamic computational analysis (such as CFD)

· Composite structure design and manufacturing

· 3D printed design and manufacture

· Mechanical structural computational analysis (FEA or similar)

About Us

Dawn Aerospace is developing the fastest and highest-flying aircraft ever to take off from a runway, combining the extreme performance of rocket propulsion with the reusability of conventional airplanes to enable high-frequency, low-cost access to sub-orbital space. Our flagship aircraft, the Mk-II Aurora spaceplane, is designed to push the boundaries of aviation into space, providing a scalable and cost-effective platform for microgravity research, atmospheric studies, and aerospace innovation. In 2024, the Aurora spaceplane broke the sound barrier, reaching Mach 1.12 at 82,500 feet, and set a record for the fastest climb to 20 kilometres (65,600 feet).

We're a tight-knit, cross-functional team with a passion for building things that matter. If you're ready to be part of a bold, hands-on engineering challenge that’s changing how space is accessed—let’s talk. And even if you think you have what it takes but are unsure that you check every box, we still want to hear from you.

Please also note that due to our current customer base and the nature of our industry and technology, we are required to conduct background checks that are undertaken for security reasons. These checks will include nationality checks as it is a requirement of this position that the Employee be eligible to access equipment and data regulated by domestic and foreign regulations. Under these regulations, an employee may be ineligible for a role in our New Zealand office if they do not hold citizenship of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the European Union or a country that is part of NATO, or if they hold ineligible dual citizenship or nationality.