Staff Application Engineer- FA&D

**Please note that this role can be flexibly based in the Southern California area.**

We Are

Synopsys is the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products. We deliver industry-leading silicon design, IP, simulation and analysis solutions, and design services. We partner closely with our customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow.

You Are

You are an experienced aerospace engineer with a passion for solving complex engineering challenges in the aerospace and defense communities. You thrive in fast-paced environments and excel at collaborating with multidisciplinary teams to deliver tailored solutions to customers. You have a keen understanding of technical requirements and can translate them into actionable strategies using advanced software tools. Your background in engineering, physics, or computer science provides a strong foundation for leveraging cutting-edge technologies such as Digital Mission Engineering (DME), simulation, and model-based systems engineering. You possess strong interpersonal skills, allowing you to communicate effectively with clients, stakeholders, and colleagues at all levels, from technical staff to C-suite executives. You are comfortable providing technical leadership, guiding customers in optimizing their workflows, and supporting the deployment of sophisticated software solutions. Your professionalism, business acumen, and drive to succeed set you apart, and you are motivated by the opportunity to make meaningful contributions to mission-critical projects. You are self-motivated, highly organized, and able to manage multiple priorities in a timeline-driven environment. You bring a logical, analytical approach to problem-solving, and your ability to quickly adapt to new technologies and customer needs ensures you stay ahead in an ever-evolving industry. With your DoD clearance, you are ready to engage with government and defense clients on high-value projects, supporting both ongoing operations and new growth opportunities.

What You'll Be Doing

• Lead technical discovery, product demonstrations, training, and proof-of-concept evaluations for Digital Mission Engineering software (Systems Tool Kit, Orbit Determination Tool Kit, Test & Evaluation Tool Kit) with aerospace and defense customers in Southern California
• Work onsite with customers to deploy software, implement best practices, and solve real-world mission simulation and systems engineering problems
• Design and develop custom integration code, automation scripts, and user interfaces in Python, C++, Java, or MATLAB to connect Ansys tools into customer workflows
• Collaborate with Account Managers to identify and drive new growth opportunities within existing accounts, translating customer technical requirements into clear value propositions
• Partner with product development teams to translate field feedback into product roadmap priorities and test new releases against industrial use cases
• Deliver training sessions and consulting engagements that help customers adopt system-level solutions involving model-based systems engineering, design optimization, and simulation process management
• Support field marketing efforts by authoring technical content, presenting at industry conferences, and representing the company in the aerospace and defense community

The Impact You Will Have

• Enable aerospace and defense customers to adopt Digital Mission Engineering workflows that accelerate their design cycles and improve mission outcomes
• Drive measurable revenue growth in key Southern California accounts by expanding software adoption across new programs and organizations
• Build long-term customer relationships that turn one-time software purchases into strategic partnerships and multi-year deployments
• Influence product direction by surfacing real customer needs that shape the next generation of Ansys systems and platform tools
• Reduce time-to-value for customers by delivering integration solutions that connect high-fidelity simulation models into system-level workflows
• Strengthen Ansys' position in the aerospace and defense market by becoming a trusted technical advisor to program managers and senior engineers
• Create reusable solutions and best practices that scale across the broader customer base and improve how the applications engineering team operates

What You'll Need

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, or related field with 5+ years of professional experience, or Master's with 3+ years, or PhD
• Demonstrated experience using or supporting engineering software in a customer-facing role such as application engineering, consulting, or technical support
• Programming ability in one or more of the following: Python, C++, C#, Java, or MATLAB, with a track record of writing integration code or automation scripts
• This position requires a government Top Secret or TS/SCI security clearance. You must be a U.S. citizen for consideration.
• Strong technical communication skills, you can explain a complex system-level tradeoff to a customer in a way that makes sense and moves the conversation forward
• Willingness to travel domestically up to 25% of the time to customer sites, conferences, and internal meetings
• Experience with Digital Mission Engineering software (STK, ODTK, TETK) or similar tools in process integration, optimization, systems engineering, and mission simulation. PLM, PDM, SPDM, or CAD are strong pluses.

Who You Are

• You can walk into a room with incomplete information, ask the right questions, and leave with a plan that the customer believes in and can execute
• You are comfortable context-switching between writing Python integration scripts in the morning and presenting a technical roadmap to a senior program manager in the afternoon
• You manage multiple customer engagements at once without dropping threads, you know what needs to happen next week and what can wait until next quarter
• You push back when a proposed solution does not fit the customer's actual problem, even when it means a harder conversation in the moment
• You are self-directed enough to own your accounts and collaborative enough to pull in the right people from sales, product, and engineering when you need them
• You think about the long game, you are not just closing this evaluation, you are building the relationship that leads to the next three expansions

The Team You'll Be Part Of

You will join the ACE team within Ansys Government Initiatives, part of Synopsys. The team focuses on crafting custom software solutions that integrate and automate Ansys commercial simulation tools to meet specific customer requirements for design, engineering, and operations in the aerospace and defense market. You will collaborate closely with project managers, developers, sales, product teams, and work directly with defense customers to deliver production-quality solutions that support national security missions.

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