Company Description:
Stratum Defense Technology is an indigenous Indian defence-technology company building autonomous systems across naval, air, and land domains. We are hiring a propulsion and propeller design engineer to own thrust-producing systems across our underwater, airborne, and turbine-propelled platforms, from blade and core geometry through to validated hardware.
We are headquartered in New Delhi.
Role Description
You will own the propulsor. This is the design-authority seat for the thrust-producing system on our underwater vehicles: you define the pump-jet propulsor geometry from first principles, predict how it behaves, and defend those numbers against measured data.
This is a design seat, not a modelling one, and it sits above the hydrodynamics and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis function rather than duplicating it. You set the geometry; the analysis lane characterises what you have set. The interesting part of the role is the closed loop: the gap between a lifting-surface prediction, a CFD solution, and a cavitation-tunnel image is where the real design work lives, and on an underwater vehicle that loop is driven as hard by acoustic signature as by efficiency.
What you will do
- Own Pump-Jet Propulsor (PJP) and marine propeller design from first principles: rotor and stator design, duct shaping, blade geometry generation and parameterisation, and off-design behaviour
- Predict performance across thrust, torque, and efficiency, in open water and behind the hull, at design point and across off-design and transient conditions
- Run rotating-machinery CFD and interpret it against theory, not just produce it
- Treat acoustic signature as a first-order design driver, and analyse and suppress cavitation inception
- Define and execute validation campaigns: towing tank and cavitation tunnel, including test-plan definition and instrumentation
- Correlate prediction against measured data and own the design changes that follow when the two disagree
- Set the geometry that the hydrodynamics and CFD analysis lane then characterises, holding design authority over the propulsor
- Liaise with manufacturing on Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining and casting, and inspect as-built hardware against design intent
- Coordinate with the autonomy, power, vehicle-integration, and acoustics functions so the propulsor closes with the rest of the vehicle
Qualifications
Essential:
- Bachelors or Masters in Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Ocean Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline
- Demonstrated first-principles ownership of marine propulsor or propeller design, not post-processing of received geometry
- Pump-jet propulsor or ducted marine propeller design: rotor and stator, duct shaping, blade geometry parameterisation
- Strong grounding in propulsor theory: Blade Element Momentum Theory, lifting-line or lifting-surface methods
- CFD for rotating machinery in ANSYS Fluent, ANSYS CFX, or equivalent
- Cavitation analysis and mitigation
- Hands-on experimental validation: towing tank or cavitation tunnel, including test-plan definition and instrumentation
- Ability to correlate prediction against measurement and drive design iterations from the discrepancy
- Off-design, transient, and full operating-envelope performance prediction
Beneficial:
- Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, torpedo, or underwater-vehicle propulsor experience
- Acoustic signature measurement and propulsor radiated-noise mitigation
- Hydroelastic blade coupling with Finite Element Analysis (FEA)
- Propeller design codes and geometry tools such as CAESES
- Manufacturing liaison for CNC machining or casting, including as-built inspection against design intent
- Instrumentation and data-acquisition literacy: load cells, pressure taps, particle image velocimetry, hydrophones or acoustic arrays
- Aeronautical propeller or ducted-fan exposure, as a future cross-domain adjacency
- Background with NSTL, NIOT, IIT, Cochin University of Science and Technology, or a recognised marine research or industry establishmen
ELIGIBILITY AND CONDITIONS
- Indian citizenship required. This role involves work on controlled defence technologies and is subject to background verification.
- This role requires recurring travel to test facilities for validation campaigns.
Full technical scope shared under NDA at first interview stage.
Pay: ₹284,451.77 - ₹1,500,000.00 per year
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Delhi, Delhi: Reliably commute or planning to relocate before starting work (Preferred)
Application Question(s):
- Have you performed cavitation analysis or cavitation-tunnel testing? Yes / No
- Have you validated a design against towing-tank or cavitation-tunnel measured data and driven design changes from the correlation? Yes / No
- Do you hold a Bachelors or Masters in Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Ocean Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Aerospace Engineering?
Yes / No.
- How many years of hands-on propeller or propulsor design experience do you have? Number
- Have you personally owned the geometry of a propeller or propulsor from first principles, rather than post-processing a geometry handed to you?
- Which Computational Fluid Dynamics tools have you used for rotating machinery? Short text. Looking for: ANSYS Fluent, ANSYS CFX, or OpenFOAM.
Work Location: In person
