Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.
ABOUT THE TEAM
The Lethality team is responsible for the design, analysis, testing, and transition to production of advanced warhead and ordnance systems across multiple platforms. This team operates at the intersection of design engineering, explosives understanding, safety, test execution, and numerical analysis to help Anduril build high-performing, mission-relevant systems faster and with better technical judgment.
This is not a narrow, siloed engineering environment. The team supports a broad range of applications across land, air, sea, ship, underwater, and other mission contexts, depending on where warhead-related capability is needed. In practice, that means the team contributes not only to design maturity and performance analysis, but also to safety-related questions such as storage compatibility, accidental initiation, sympathetic detonation risk, and other system-level concerns.
The team also plays a critical role in helping Anduril move quickly without relying on unnecessary physical testing. Numerical analysis and simulation are used to guide design decisions, shape experimental setups, inform diagnostic strategies, interpret results, and improve future product and proposal work. This role sits directly in that loop.
ABOUT THE JOB
Anduril is looking for a Warhead Design Engineer — Modeling & Simulation to join the team in Costa Mesa, CA. This role is for an engineer who can use academic literature, empirical data, first-principles reasoning, and computational modeling to help steer warhead design and related ordnance decisions from concept maturity through testing and toward production readiness.
The objective of this role is not simply to run simulations. It is to use modeling and analysis as an engineering tool to improve decisions across design, explosive selection, initiation concepts, test planning, and post-test interpretation. The right person will help the team evaluate performance at a high level, build credible pre-test predictions, correlate model outputs to test data, and contribute to the broader engineering understanding needed to support complex munitions systems.
This role will support work across multiple programs rather than sitting in a tightly bounded lane. It is a strong fit for someone who wants broad technical exposure, meaningful influence on real engineering decisions, and the opportunity to work alongside a deeply technical team on some of the hardest warhead and effects problems in the business. Steven Todd described the role as one that should not be overly pigeonholed and that may grow into broader ownership over time depending on the person’s strengths.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
- Leverage academic studies and literature, empirical data, and simulation to steer the design of warheads and missile/ordnance systems from concept design maturity to production.
- Analyze lethality and performance using hand-calculations (Gurney equations) and multi-physics modeling and simulation tools (CTH, Sierra, Zapotec, etc.)
- Create pre-test predictions and correlate models with test data.
- Manage arena and system testing of munitions products from end-to-end, including project planning, design of experiments, and safety.
- Capture test video, compile data from ground and flight tests, and analyze results.
- Assemble/disassemble explosive test articles and precision targets.
- Individual Impact In this role, you will directly influence how Anduril designs, evaluates, and matures advanced warhead systems. Your work will help the team:
- absorb growing analysis demand across multiple active programs
- make better engineering decisions earlier in the development cycle
- reduce avoidable physical testing through smarter simulation and planning
- design more informative experiments and diagnostics strategies
- translate test data into better future designs, technical reports, customer-facing outputs, and proposal inputs
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- BS or higher degree in mechanical, aerospace, explosives, or another engineering discipline.
- 2-10 years’ work experience as an individual contributing engineer, focused on mechanical design, analysis, and testing of warheads or ordnance systems.
- Experience using multi-physics modeling and simulation tools such as ALE3D, Ansys Autodyn/LS-Dyna, CTH, EPIC, Matlab, Python, Sierra, Velodyne, Zapotec
- Test experience including data acquisition, data analysis, and project coordination
- Ability to travel as required for testing (surges up to 25%)
- Experience preparing engineering documentation (i.e. specifications, test procedures, technical reports, drawings, etc.)
- Passion for defending the United States and her allies
- Be able to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance
- Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Active U.S. security clearance (DoD Secret or Top-Secret or DOE L or Q)
- Expert level experience with multi-physics modeling and simulation tools
- Experience with munitions testing
- Experience with CAD design tools such as SolidWorks or NX CAD
- Prior experience in explosive operations and/or handling munitions
- Experience with the DoD Weapons Safety Boards
- Experience designing and scaling production of mechanical components at volume
- Experience developing or testing complex electrical or mechatronics systems
US Salary Range$129,000—$171,000 USD
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:
Benefits
At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.
Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams
Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.
To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:
-
No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.
- Please always verify communications:
- Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an
@anduril.comaddress. - Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to contact@anduril.com.
- Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an
-
Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach: If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.
-
What to Do If You Suspect Fraud: Should you encounter any questionable or fraudulent outreach claiming to be from Anduril, please report it immediately to contact@anduril.com. Your proactive caution is invaluable in protecting your personal information and upholding the security and trustworthiness of our recruitment efforts.
Data Privacy
To view Anduril's candidate data privacy policy, please visit https://anduril.com/applicant-privacy-notice/.
By submitting your application, you consent to Anduril Industries using a third-party service provider to conduct pre-employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening and assessing potential risks as part of your application process. This third-party service provider provides risk-intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public-record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third-party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Use of this provider helps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and protect technology, intellectual property, and organizational security.