About Canada Rocket Company

Canada Rocket Company is developing Canada's first medium-lift launch vehicle.  

We are a team of veterans from SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, ArianeGroup, Pangea Propulsion, Tesla, MDA, and more, bringing over a century of combined launch and space systems experience back to Canada.  

Our mission is to provide reliable, independent access to space for Canada and its allies in a rapidly expanding global market.  

Our approach is defined by pragmatic engineering:  

• We utilize a single 750 kN engine that scales from light- to medium-lift via engine clustering.  

• We lean on simple, proven technologies to reach orbit faster, avoiding the pitfalls of complex or novel designs.  

• We test early and often, catching problems on the bench instead of at the pad.  

Backed by over $20M in funding secured within our first four months, including the largest all-Canadian seed round in the sector and an $8.3M Department of National Defence grant, we are moving with the speed and institutional backing required to meet Canada’s orbital launch needs. 

About the role

Canada Rocket Company is building a sovereign launch capability for Canada. We're looking for a Head of Test to build and lead the team that will design and operate a rocket engine test facility. This is a foundational leadership role: you will own all aspects of a facility capable of hotfire testing ~700 kN engines and their subsystems, component testing, and structural testing of the vehicle’s fuselage.  Your facility will be the hub where propulsion, structures, avionics, flight software, and ground software operating in conjunction will be put through their paces to provide data critical to their development.  If you want to shape the test capabilities of an entire launch vehicle program and be the first facility with this capacity in Canada, this is the role for you. 

What you'll do

• Lead the design, procurement, commissioning, and operation of CRC’s test. infrastructure for propulsion and structural testing. 

• Build, lead, and mentor an exceptional multidisciplinary team. 

• Instil a culture of extreme ownership and efficient actions. 

• Drive capital projects to expand test stand capacity and capability; manage budgets, staff work, contractor scopes, schedule, and risk. 

• Develop and maintain test site safety protocols and support regulatory compliance for test operations. 

• Produce and review test stand fabrication drawings, P&IDs, procedures, and sequences. 

• Develop, imbed, and train safety features and practices. 

• Lead anomaly and failure investigations for test campaigns, driving root cause analysis and corrective action. 

• Own instrumentation and data acquisition across test campaigns, ensuring data quality and traceability. 

• Manage waste and emissions permitting and handling. Describe the specific responsibilities and job functions of the role

Qualifications

Required: 

• 10+ years of rocket engine testing with appreciable durations both as an individual contributor and leader. 

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in mechanical, aerospace, or a related engineering discipline. 

• Strong proficiency in test stand design, commissioning, and operations. 

• Analyze or trade test processes using first order thermodynamic, fluid mechanics, and structural mechanics analyses. 

• Proficiency designing, analyzing, and interpreting complex fluid systems as well as understanding the behaviour of the mechanisms in those systems. 

• Experience sizing and using components such as solenoid / pneumatic / hydraulic valves, regulators, check valves, relief valves, filters, pressure transducers, thermocouples, flow meters, etc. 

• Strong instrumentation and data acquisition fundamentals, including sensor selection and DAQ (Data Acquisition) system setup. 

• Experience sizing and using plumbing parts including tubing, piping, flanges, gaskets, o-rings, fittings, etc. 

• Proven ability to build and lead engineering teams, including hiring, mentoring, and establishing processes from an early stage. 

• Excellent collaboration skills, particularly in cross-disciplinary environments involving hardware, software, and systems engineering. 

Preferred: 

• Experience with liquid methane and liquid oxygen systems.

• Passion for early-stage programs and comfort operating with limited resources and evolving requirements. 

• Functional proficiency in Visio, CAD, and Python.