Structural Engineer at Thornton Tomasetti in Los Angeles, CA

Structural Engineer

Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Thornton Tomasetti applies engineering and scientific principles to solve the world’s challenges. An independent organization of creative thinkers and innovative doers collaborating from offices worldwide, our mission is to bring our clients' ideas to life and, in the process, lay the groundwork for a better, more resilient future. We provide support and opportunities to our employees to achieve their full potential and cultivate a rewarding career.

Our Protective Design & Security team prioritizes the protection of life and assets by mitigating consequences of security risks in the built environment. With more than 75 years of experience, our risk-led and strategic solutions safeguard people, property, and operations from intentional harm, evolving and emerging threats.

Whether safeguarding a cultural landmark, securing a healthcare facility, or planning for crowd safety at a major event, our approach is grounded in intelligence, simulation, and human-centered design to deliver resilient solutions with demonstrable performance and lasting impact.

Within our practice, you’ll develop knowledge on how risk-based design brings together security planning, physical security, and electronic security to develop layered protection strategies. You’ll support the development of performance-based solutions—from secure site planning to physical hardening, access control, surveillance, and detection—and how these measures integrate with security operations.

Your Role

As a Structural Engineer in our Protective Design & Security practice, you will support risk-based engineering and physical security design that strengthens the safety, resilience, and security of buildings and infrastructure. You will apply threat-informed engineering to structural hardening, blast effects, and progressive collapse, helping connect protective measures with architecture, site design, electronic security, and operations across buildings, campuses, and mixed-use environments. With support from your team, you will work in a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment while developing technical, analytical, and project coordination skills.

What You'll Do

• Support protective design concepts and design studies involving blast effects, progressive collapse, structural hardening, and risk-informed design.
• Assist with analysis, modeling, and calculation tasks as well as the integration of structural and physical security measures into project designs.
• Help prepare diagrams, calculations, technical narratives, presentations, and design documentation that communicate protection measures clearly.
• Coordinate with architects, engineers, planners, and security specialists in a multidisciplinary team environment.
• Participate in on-site assessments, field surveys, and construction-phase activities.
• Build familiarity with TT’s culture, services, and collaborative working style while growing your technical and professional skills.

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in structural or civil engineering, or a closely related field; master’s degree preferred.
• Interest in protective design, security, resilience, and hazard-resistant engineering.
• Strong analytical, written, and verbal communication skills.
• Familiarity with design, visualization, documentation and computational tools such as Revit, AutoCAD, Rhino/Grasshopper, Adobe Creative Suite, Bluebeam, SAP2000, ETABS, or similar platforms is preferred.
• Ability to obtain a U.S. security clearance.

Compensation

The rate for this position generally is $78,000 - $92,000 annually. This range is a good faith estimate provided pursuant to the California Pay Transparency Law. It is based on what a successful California applicant might be paid and assumes that the successful candidate will be in California or perform the position from California. Similar positions located outside of California will not necessarily receive the same compensation. Actual pay rates may vary from the range, as permitted by California Equal Pay Transparency Law. Compensation offers will be based on various factors, including operational needs, individual education, qualifications and experience, work location and comparison to employee already in the role, as well as other considerations permitted by law. A potential new employee’s pay history will not be used in compensation decisions.

Benefits

Depending on your employment status, benefits may include:

• Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, AD&D, Disability and other voluntary benefits

• Flexible Spending Accounts for Medical and Childcare

• Paid Time Off, Family Leave for New Parents, Volunteer Time

• Tuition Reimbursement

• Commuter Transit (where available)

• 401k retirement savings with Company matching on employee contributions and/or qualified student loan repayments

• Fitness Reimbursement

• And other various wellness, diversity/inclusion and employee resource programs and initiatives

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Thornton Tomasetti is proud to be an equal employment workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Thornton Tomasetti are considered without regards to age, ancestry, color, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, mental or physical disability, national origin, protected family care or medical leave status, race, religion (including beliefs and practices or the absence thereof), sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Thornton Tomasetti Global Terms of Use and Privacy Statement

Carefully read these Terms of Use before using this website. Your access to and use of this website and application for a job at Thornton Tomasetti are conditioned on your acceptance and compliance with these terms.

Please access the linked document by clicking here, select the country where you are applying for employment, and review. Before submitting your application you will be asked to confirm your agreement with the terms.

To request a reasonable accommodation during the application process for this role, please contact talentconcierge@throntontomasetti.com

Beware Of Recruitment Fraud: Scammers may attempt to impersonate Thornton Tomasetti. Messages from our firm come only from the ThorntonTomasetti.com domain, Thornton Tomasetti does not use any third-party recruiters. When in doubt, please contact us through our web form here and see how you can protect yourself online here.