Senior Specialist, Aero Performance Engineer

Arrow McLaren is the McLaren Racing IndyCar team located on the West side of Indianapolis. By joining our team, you’ll be part of an exhilarating racing program that aims to set the standard for high performance in sport. Our values define what matters most to us: Innovative – Respectful – Inclusive – Energetic – Brave. Every day, we want members of this team to come to work with a simple goal in mind: Build better race cars and develop better ways to go racing. Focus on the process, enjoy the process of continual improvement and the results will take care of themselves.

Purpose of the Role: The purpose of this role is to improve the performance of the race car through preparation, development, analysis and presentation of aerodynamic data from any of the 3 environments (track, WT and CFD) that influences the mechanical and aerodynamic setup of the car.

Principal Accountabilities:

• Analyzing and presenting aerodynamic data to aid both car setup and longer-term development.
• Identify weaknesses and opportunities to improve car performance.
• Process aerodynamic data from wind tunnel, straight-line tests, races and CFD for map generation, correlation and performance assessment.
• Drive improvements in aerodynamic data analysis, tools and processes helping to define a state-of-the-art methodology for knowledge creation.
• Summarize observations from track, CFD and WT and assist in devising further experiments or alternative instrumentation as well as contributing to design improvements as required.
• Contribute proactively to increasing the impact of the aero team by pushing the boundaries on all our technologies across the environments.
• Support Race Engineers and Vehicle Performance during track events.
• Promote collaborative work when discussing results or defining development direction.
• Support the Head of Aero Performance in maintaining a high level of motivation and achievement within the team.
• Share your experience, knowledge and skills to help develop the whole group, supporting less experienced colleagues and helping to raise the level of aerodynamic understanding within the team, while also playing your part in the continuous improvement of our tools and processes.

Job requirements Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• A degree in engineering or other STEM subject.
• Experience in Aerodynamics with particularly sound knowledge of the wind tunnel testing environment and use of CFD.
• Demonstrate an excellent knowledge of flow structure characteristics and flow breakdown mechanisms.
• Proven ability to work at a fast pace and to react rapidly to new information.
• Experience in using industrial flow CFD solvers (CCM+/ Fluent / OpenFoam) and CAD packages (ideally CATIA 3Dx and SolidWorks).
• Experience with a range of languages (Matlab/Python/Javascript) would be beneficial.
• Have good analytical data driven analysis skills.
• Ability to extract meaningful data from a dataset and present in a clear concise manner.
• Knowledge of race car data acquisition and limitations.
• Experience with telemetry software (Pi Toolbox / Atlas).
• Knowledge of full scale simulation techniques and race car setup.
• Sound awareness of trades in race car setup with regards to aerodynamics, mechanical setup and tires.
• A team player but with the initiative to make own decisions and work with minimal supervision.
• Self-starter, able to identify requirements independently, then make proposals for solutions.
• Able to work under pressure, to tight deadlines, often with ever-changing priorities.
• The ability to plan and organize a project to deliver and execute to target specifications, often to a tight deadline.
• Good communication skills, with ability to listen, understand and embed key engineering information to trackside operations.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and analytical approach, with attention to detail.
• Aptitude to learn from others and share knowledge with others.
• Strength to provide innovation and provide a line of continuous improvement for the engineering department and the aerodynamics group.
• Ability to understand practical mechanical exploitation in the restricted arena of race car competition and testing.
• Travel to tests and race events will be required. Occasional travel to the McLaren Technology Centre in the UK may be required.
• Most importantly to have the desire to go beyond expectations.

Total Rewards: Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and vision benefits, 401(k) Retirement match, Voluntary life, short-term, and long-term disability benefits, Annual bonus plan, Competitive time off plan, Team discounts, including kit apparel.

Arrow McLaren makes equal employment opportunities available to all without regard to race, color, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), age, religion, national origin, disability, citizenship status, military status, genetic information, or any other legally-protected category.