---
title: 'Propulsion Design Office Principal at The Exploration Company'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/propulsion-design-office-principal-the-exploration-company-bordeaux-vyrv7apksm2a'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-06'
---

# Propulsion Design Office Principal at The Exploration Company

- **Company:** [The Exploration Company](https://feeny.ai/companies/the-exploration-company)
- **Location:** Bordeaux, France
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-07-24
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-06
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/the-exploration-company/b38e95ae-1d46-4d5e-8f43-010efc7741c8

## Job description

Here at The Exploration Company, we are building spacecrafts for humanity.

## Team Leadership & Engineering Management

- Lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers spanning thermal, structural/mechanical, CFD and CAD/design functions, fostering a culture of technical excellence and accountability.
- Define individual scopes of work, set priorities, and manage workload across concurrent design activities to keep the team aligned with program milestones.
- Conduct regular design reviews and one-on-ones, providing clear technical direction and supporting career development within the office.

Propulsion System Design & Technical Ownership

- Making or approving key design decisions on feed or pressure systems, and associated structures.
- Drive design-to-requirements traceability, ensuring system satisfy mass, thermal, and safety margins up to qualification.
- Coordinate with Systems Engineering and Vehicle Design to manage interfaces between the propulsion system and adjacent vehicle subsystems.

Thermal Analysis & Management

- Oversee steady-state and transient thermal analyses of propulsion components, ensuring compliance with temperature limits across all mission phases (ground operations, in-orbit, re-entry).
- Review and approve thermal models, ensuring analytical rigor and correlation with test data.
- Guide the team in identifying test platforms and defining test objectives.

Structural & Mechanical Design

- Direct the mechanical design of propulsion structures, and brackets, ensuring adequate strength, stiffness, and fatigue life under load cases.
- Oversee FEA and hand-analysis efforts to verify structural margins, and lead disposition of any margin concerns or design anomalies.
- Working closely with AIT team to define and validate integration sequences.

CAD, Documentation & Configuration Control

- Define and enforce CAD standards, model maturity gates, and drawing release processes within the design office, ensuring consistency and traceability across the propulsion product tree.
- Oversee the maintenance of the engineering master model and associated bill of materials (BOM), coordinating with PDM/PLM administrators to keep configuration control current.
- Ensure design documentation — including ICDs, engineering drawings, design notes, and specification trees — is complete, reviewed, and baselined on schedule.

## Key Responsibilities

Location You will perform your duties principally at the Company's premises in Bordeaux and may be required to travel from time to time to our company’s premises in Munich in the course of your duties.

What we would love to see from you

- 5+ years of hands-on experience in propulsion system design for launch vehicles, spacecraft, or space capsules, with direct exposure to liquid propulsion architectures.
- Demonstrated ability to work across thermal, structural, and mechanical domains — you don't need to be the deepest expert in every field, but you can lead and critically review work across all three.
- A track record of managing small-to-mid-size engineering teams in a fast-paced, hardware-delivery environment, with the ability to develop junior engineers while maintaining technical standards.
- Prior experience running or closely supervising thermal (e.g. Thermal Desktop, ANSYS or equivalent) and structural analyses (e.g. NASTRAN or equivalent), and strong familiarity with CAD environments (CATIA, NX, or equivalent).
- Experience managing complex system-level trades and interfaces and formal design review processes

Skills and Behaviors:

- A hands-on approach to problem-solving, combined with a collaborative mindset to work across multidisciplinary teams
- Excellent organizational skills and ability to multitask
- Capability of working autonomously whilst collaborating productively with remote teams
- Positive and flexible attitude in a constantly evolving environment
- Grit to get the job done
- Ability to communicate effectively with a wide variety of audiences
- Behaviors consistent with The Exploration Company’s core values of Commitment, Innovation, Trust, Quality, and Teamwork

Why you should join us! What makes us special here at The Exploration Company and why we think you will enjoy working here is:

- We’re Agile - we make decisions fast whilst keeping our goals and systems in mind
- We’re Open and Collaborative - we are transparent about risks and obstacles, so that we can cooperate to overcome them
- We have a lot of Fun - we refuel our energy knowing we are democratising space. It’s a wonderful and rare opportunity, are YOU up for the challenge?

We'd love to hear from you if you wish to be a part of our journey. Please submit your CV now for immediate consideration and we will be in touch shortly.

The Exploration Company is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status. Relocation assistance is provided for those willing to relocate including visa sponsorship where applicable.

All offers are contingent upon the successful completion of a background check, which will be subject to the country, role, and project you applied for. By submitting your application, you acknowledge and agree that any offer of employment may be conditional upon successful condition of this check. The Exploration Company partners with Zinc Work Limited located in the UK (Zinc), a third-party provider, to ensure this process as efficient and transparent as possible.

If applicable, you will receive an email from Zinc upon acceptance of your offer with a link to a secure portal where you can provide the required information to Zinc.

## About The Exploration Company

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: The Exploration Company (TEC) is building a full-stack space transportation platform, including a reusable space capsule (Nyx) and a high-thrust rocket engine (Storm), to democratize access to space.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: Munich, Germany (HQ); additional offices in Bordeaux (France), Luxembourg, Turin (Italy), Houston (Texas, USA), and Dubai/Abu Dhabi (UAE)
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Hélène Huby (CEO) and a team of aerospace veterans

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Space transportation, aerospace engineering, orbital logistics
- **Target customers**: Space station operators, satellite operators, government space agencies (e.g., NASA), commercial space companies (B2B, B2G)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: "To build space vehicles for humanity, enabling everyone to participate peacefully in the building of our human future." [exploration.space](https://exploration.space/about)

## Products & Services
- **Nyx**: A reusable space capsule designed to dock with any space station, capable of carrying cargo (and eventually crew) to low-Earth orbit. It is the company’s first commercial vehicle.
- **Storm**: A high-thrust, staged-combustion rocket engine delivering up to 180 tons of thrust, designed to power a globally competitive, reusable launcher.
- **Mission Bikini**: A first demonstrator capsule built for ballistic reentry, completed from paper sketch to flight-ready in nine months.
- **Mission Possible**: A second demonstrator capsule built for controlled re-entry and recovery with cargo, completed in two years.
- **Orbital Propulsion**: In-house development of avionics, flight software, guidance/navigation/control (GNC), and reusable thrusters.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $210.06M (Series B, with a $160M round raised approximately two years ago) [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/the-exploration-company)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Backed by tier-one investors; first European company to sign a Space Act Agreement with NASA; board includes figures like Mike Griffin (former NASA Administrator) and Yo-Yo Ma (cellist and board advisor) [exploration.space](https://exploration.space/about)
- **Growth Signals**: 10 missions already booked; two demonstrator capsules built in under three years; team of 450+ employees spanning 35 nationalities; offices in 6 locations across Europe, the US, and the UAE; named one of the fastest-growing space companies worldwide.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Speed of execution**: Demonstrated ability to go from concept to flight-ready hardware in 9–24 months, far faster than traditional aerospace.
- **Reusability focus**: Both Nyx and Storm are designed for rapid reuse, dramatically lowering per-mission costs.
- **Open-source vehicle design**: TEC’s approach is intentionally collaborative, fostering partnerships across countries and with NASA.
- **Full-stack capability**: Controls the entire space transportation stack (capsule, engine, avionics, software), reducing dependency on external suppliers.
- **European base with global reach**: Positioned as a key European player in the new space economy, with strong government and commercial ties.

## Strategic Focus
- **Commercial cargo missions**: First priority is launching Nyx to serve low-Earth orbit space stations (both public and private).
- **Engine development**: Continuing work on Storm to power a future European launcher.
- **International expansion**: Deepening presence in the US (Houston office) and UAE (Dubai/Abu Dhabi office).
- **Talent scaling**: Growing the team from 450+ to meet mission milestones, with a focus on engineering, production, and digital roles.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Emphasizes speed, execution, and ownership. Values include Excellence, Teamwork, Integrity, and "Space for everyone." The company prides itself on gathering diverse, international talent from both space and non-space backgrounds.
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: Offers flexibility and remote work opportunities depending on the role, but encourages a hybrid approach where possible. [exploration.space](https://www.exploration.space/careers)
- **Relocation Support**: Yes, the company provides relocation assistance and work permit/visa support for new hires.
- **Notable Perks**: Opportunity to work on cutting-edge space vehicles from day one; internal mobility encouraged; background check required for all offers.
- **Engineering Culture**: Leadership includes aerospace veterans who have worked on major global space programs. The team is 450+ strong, representing 35 nationalities, with a flat, fast-moving structure.

## Sources
1. [exploration.space - Home](https://exploration.space/)
2. [exploration.space - About](https://exploration.space/about)
3. [exploration.space - Careers](https://www.exploration.space/careers)
4. [cbinsights.com - The Exploration Company](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/the-exploration-company)
5. [Wikipedia - The Exploration Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exploration_Company)

## Other roles at The Exploration Company

- [Welding Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/welding-engineer-the-exploration-company-bordeaux-0kgzkww4cjpd) — Bordeaux, France
- [Head of Electronics & software](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-electronics-software-the-exploration-company-munich-3yxtwzah13vy) — Munich, Germany
- [TCS and ECLSS Certification Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/tcs-and-eclss-certification-engineer-the-exploration-company-bordeaux-rqv9dzq7gzfa) — Bordeaux, France
- [Lead Commercial Sales](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-commercial-sales-the-exploration-company-munich-y0f88sgexmm6) — Munich, Germany
- [Storm Test Bench Principal Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/storm-test-bench-principal-engineer-the-exploration-company-bordeaux-4kdfjx6tgmck) — Bordeaux, France
- [IT Administrator](https://feeny.ai/job/it-administrator-the-exploration-company-turin-ntapn0kbmp7t) — Turin, Italy
- [Non-Destructive Testing Technician – Level 2](https://feeny.ai/job/non-destructive-testing-technician-level-2-the-exploration-company-munich-xcyjx5zjyph0) — Munich, Germany
- [Test Development Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/test-development-engineer-the-exploration-company-bordeaux-bbcfd95xqc33) — Bordeaux, France
- [MAIT Electrical and Test Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/mait-electrical-and-test-engineer-the-exploration-company-munich-hnt0tk61xr1s) — Munich, Germany
- [Senior MAIT Electrical and Test Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-mait-electrical-and-test-engineer-the-exploration-company-munich-zf5bjzcghhwf) — Munich, Germany