Aerojet Rocketdyne

I accepted an offer from Aerojet Rocketdyne for a Materials and Processes Engineering position and recently got an offer for the same position at Boeing. Both roles are entry-level and located in the Southern California area.

Boeing gave me a lower base salary with no sign-on, while AR gave me a better base salary with a sign-on bonus.

When comparing benefits, it seems that Boeing has slightly better benefits overall compared to AR since they have L3Harris’s benefits.

Is it worth negotiating for higher salary on my Boeing offer? I would love any input for anyone currently in either of these roles at these companies.

Thanks everyone!

Edit/Update: Boeing gave me a sign-on and a better base salary, but it is still ~$9k lower than my AR offer.

I was reading this article,

and I was wondering if Aerojet would ever modernize the production of the ancient but excellent RL-10 engine. I saw an RL-10 once, and there are about 7000 cooling tubes, brazed to connect them on each end. The amount of highly skilled hand labor in a 1980s-era RL-10was absolutely ridiculous. The order for 116 of these engines represents a lot of money, and time to build, I thought.

Then I came to paragraph 8.

Aerojet said the RL10C-X is a variant of the RL10 developed for Vulcan Centaur that will “increase the use of additive manufacturing and introduce other advanced technologies to improve the quality, reliability, affordability and performance.” 

This was how SpaceX cut the cost of building Merlin 1D and MVac engines by over 95%. In particular, replacing all of those brazed tubes with a machined outer combustion chamber, nozzle and bell, and using an explosively formed inner sleeve of copper, to make a composite, monolithic assembly saves thousands of parts and millions of dollars.

The RL10C-X uses a 3D-printed main injector and main combustion chamber, and has a 94-inch monolithic lightweight composite nozzle. According to Aerojet, the specific impulse, or Isp, of the RL10C-X is 461 seconds, which “puts it near the very top of the RL10 engine family in terms of performance. Specific impulse measures the amount of thrust generated by a rocket engine per unit of propellant consumed per second.

I believe Musk has said he would like to see the rest of the US rocket industry catch up, rather than go bankrupt (but not too fast). As Jeff Greason (X-cor Aerospace?) said, having a second source increases the confidence of customers, and is good for the industry.

What are your comments/opinions?

Burry did it again.

Does anyone know the status of Aerojet's AR1? I get the impression a working prototype was produced.

In a hypothetical world were ULA gets fed up waiting for the BE-4 how possible is it to switch to the AR1?

Would it be a lot of rework to switch the AR1 fuels? Is it a case of having yo rework everything (injector plates, combustion chamber, etc..) or is it more modifying the preburners to change the fuel mix?

Could Vulkan get away with modifying the height of the tanks to support RP1 instead?

I'm almost done with my MS so I'm starting to look at jobs. I found a couple positions at AR near Seattle working 12 hr Friday-Sunday shifts which sounds great (I love the Pacific Northwest and it would be awesome to have weekdays off).

However, I know that AR was having problems and doesn't have a great reputation as an employer. Have they changed since they were acquired by LM recently? Anyone willing to share their experiences?

I’m interviewing with Aerojet Rocketdyne tomorrow, and I was curious what happens if and when Lockheed acquires the company. Does it becomes a part of LM space? Do they fire everyone?

Hi all,

I recently got an offer from Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR) for a senior engineering position in Florida.

My question is regarding the health and culture of the company. I recently saw that the merger between AR and Lockheed fell through. I also found info (not sure on how credible it is) that AR operates on slim profit margins and the financial article kept mentioning that the best case scenario is AR be bought up by another defense contractor such as BAE systems.

Basically what are the chances that I accept the offer and I'm immediately placed on the chopping block. I'm surprised they are actively hiring which could mean they are healthy.. idk.

Looking for input from folks that work there perhaps?