Certification Engineer in New Zealand

Join us in developing a remotely piloted reusable spaceplane that combines the demanding performance of a rocket with the reusability of an aircraft. We're looking for an experienced Certification Engineer who enjoys taking ownership of risks and mitigations in the flight operations domain. We need someone who can analyse the safety risks of complex UAS operations, interpret high level safety objectives, and work with engineering and flight operations teams to establish our operations are safe. You will directly contribute to the safety case that demonstrates frequent unmanned, rocket-powered flights to space are safe. If you want a narrow, heavily structured role, this is probably not for you. We are looking for someone practical, organised, and capable of taking ownership in a fast-moving environment. This role works within the Spaceplane Certification Team reporting to the Certification Team Lead. You will not have a team working directly for you but will have a high level of interaction with the Flight Operations and Systems Engineering teams. What You'll Do Manage Certification Projects and Liaison with Civil Aviation Authorities and External Stakeholders • Engage directly with authorities to come to agreement on acceptable risk mitigations. • Where there is disagreement in acceptable approaches to safety, resolve in a manner that builds trust and enables progress. • Work closely with Flight Operations and Systems Engineering

Our Mission: Fly to space twice in a day. At Dawn Aerospace, we're building a future where access to space is as routine as air travel. Our Aurora spaceplane programme is developing a rapidly reusable, rocket-powered aircraft capable of transforming how humanity reaches space. This isn't a programme for people who want to spend years analysing a small part of a large aircraft. This is an opportunity to work on flight-critical structures for one of the most ambitious aerospace projects in the world, seeing your analysis directly influence the design, testing and flight of real hardware. We're looking for a Structural Analyst to join our Spaceplane team in Christchurch. You'll play a key role in developing and validating the structures that enable routine, scalable and sustainable access to space. Working alongside world-class engineers across aerodynamics, propulsion, avionics, systems, composites and manufacturing, you'll help solve some of the toughest structural challenges in aerospace while contributing directly to hardware that flies. What you will do Perform structural analysis and validation of composite and metallic airframe structures and components. Develop analytical and finite element models to predict structural performance under flight, ground and test loading conditions. Evaluate the static strength, stiffness, stability, fatigue and damage tolerance of composite and metallic structures. Develop structural load cases and certification substantiation approaches.