Rarefied Flow Solver Developer

About the Role

Flexcompute is seeking an experienced software developer to contribute to a rarefied gas simulation software and AI tool designed for GPUs. The successful candidate will play a critical role in designing and implementing cutting-edge algorithms with an emphasis on speed, robustness, accuracy, and scalability. This position offers a unique opportunity to explore state-of-the-art rarefied gas prediction and artificial intelligence algorithms in a production environment. The candidate will gain experience working with highly experienced professionals and be an integral part of the product development, release, maintenance, and support phases. Over time, this role offers exposure to Flexcompute's sophisticated multi-physics simulation and design optimization technologies.

Key Responsibilities

• Independently implement, test, and document new solver features.
• Profile and optimize feature implementation to improve speed and scalability on CPUs/GPUs.
• Contribute to a clean and maintainable API for various functionalities.
• Contribute to general source code maintenance and other relevant software development activities (bug fixes, support, etc.).
• Collaborate with teams developing agentic user interface and scientific visualization tools/technologies.
• Collaborate with Product Management, QA, and Documentation teams to accomplish product milestones in a timely manner.
• Follow sound software engineering practices to ensure code is maintainable, extensible, and robust.
• Prioritize user experience by making the complexity of fluid simulations manageable through intuitive controls and straightforward workflows.
• Deliver robust and high-performance simulations for industrial applications that involve management of large amounts of data.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Strong background in Rarefied Gas Dynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Structural Mechanics, Aeroacoustics, Conjugate Heat Transfer, or adjacent fields.
• Knowledge of numerical methods for solving rarefied flows such as Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), Particle-in-Cell (PIC), or lower-fidelity engineering methods.
• Knowledge of solving discretized Navier Stokes equations for compressible flows.
• Basics of computational geometry and meshing requirements for CFD simulations.
• Proven experience in and contributions to complex rarefied gas or CFD solvers.
• C++ for scientific computing and Python (or similar) for scripting.
• Familiar with version control systems such as git and the Linux command line.

Qualifications

• Master degree or PhD in an applicable technical field.
• 0-3 years of industry experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Industry experience with implementation and testing of new features in commercial gas dynamics or CFD solvers.
• Prior experience in working collaboratively in a medium-sized distributed development team.
• PhD in Computational Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or Aerospace Engineering.
• Expertise in one or more of the following topics:
• Rarefied gas dynamics: kinetic theory and molecular gas dynamics, plume impingement (chemical and plasma plumes), plume-surface interactions, reacting plumes, lunar/Martian dust propagation, Hall effect thrusters, etc.
• Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), Particle-in-Cell (PIC) techniques for modeling rarefied gases or plasmas.
• AI surrogate models of fluid dynamics.
• Surface and volumetric meshing for CFD.
• Development of scalable, parallel CFD solvers using CUDA, HIP, MPI, OpenMP.