Top 12 Naval Architect Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the competitive world of naval architecture, your resume needs to hum with both precision and judgment. Show the tools you command, the analyses you trust, and the decisions you make under constraint. Put the skills that shape real ships front and center—design, verify, iterate, and deliver—so employers see the engineer who turns seawater, steel, and math into something that floats fast and safe.
Naval Architect Skills
- AutoCAD
- Rhino
- ShipConstructor
- Ansys
- MATLAB
- Orca3D
- SolidWorks
- GHS (General HydroStatics)
- Navisworks
- DNV Nauticus
- Maxsurf
- CFD Analysis
1. AutoCAD
AutoCAD is a CAD workhorse naval architects use to draft, detail, and revise ship structures and systems with tight control over geometry, tolerances, and documentation.
Why It's Important
It anchors 2D and 3D drawing workflows, enforces dimensional accuracy, speeds revision cycles, and hands shipyards clean, consistent deliverables.
How to Improve AutoCAD Skills
Own 3D fundamentals: Solid and surface modeling, lofts, sweeps, sections—especially for hull features and outfitting envelopes.
Template ruthlessly: Title blocks, layers, linetypes, plot styles, and standards so drawings look identical across a program.
Automate: Parametric blocks, fields, and simple scripts or LISP to stamp out repetitive chores.
Detail with discipline: Clear annotation, callouts, weld symbols, and BOM conventions that downstream teams trust.
Coordinate: Xrefs and model/drawing segregation to keep large packages light and maintainable.
Shortcuts and custom UI: Tool palettes, aliases, and custom ribbons tuned to your naval tasks.
How to Display AutoCAD Skills on Your Resume
2. Rhino
Rhino is a flexible NURBS-based modeler ideal for complex freeform marine geometry—hulls, superstructures, fair surfaces, and clean intersections.
Why It's Important
Hull fairness, watertight solids, and rapid surface iteration live here. It lets you sculpt and refine shapes that meet hydrodynamic, production, and aesthetic constraints.
How to Improve Rhino Skills
Surface mastery: Continuity (G0–G3), patch strategies, trims, blends, and zebra analysis for fairness.
Marine plugins: Learn marine toolsets that add hydrostatics, stability checks, and resistance estimates within Rhino.
Parametrics: Use visual scripting to drive hull families, spacing, and scantlings with rules for fast variants.
Clean topology: Build watertight solids from disciplined surfaces; avoid slivers and non-manifold edges.
Validation: Sections, curvature graphs, and derived hydro data to catch fairness and displacement shifts early.
How to Display Rhino Skills on Your Resume
3. ShipConstructor
ShipConstructor is a production-centric CAD/CAM suite for shipbuilding that ties detailed design to yard-ready outputs—structure, piping, HVAC, electrical, and more.
Why It's Important
It bridges elegant design and gritty fabrication. Rules-based modeling, parts management, and automated drawings push accuracy and buildability.
How to Improve ShipConstructor Skills
Learn the product hierarchy: Projects, assemblies, parts, standards, and naming that scale across a fleet.
Model with fabrication in mind: Plate expansions, welds, penetrations, and stock sizes that match yard practice.
Exploit catalogs: Standardize profiles, fittings, and equipment to cut rework and inventory chaos.
Drawings and reports: Automate spool drawings, nests, and MTOs; validate against yard feedback.
Revision control: Robust change handling—who changed what, when, and why—so the shop never guesses.
Interoperability: Clean exchanges with analysis tools and coordination models without geometry drift.
How to Display ShipConstructor Skills on Your Resume
4. Ansys
Ansys provides FEA and CFD solvers for structures, fluids, and coupled problems—ideal for loads, strength, vibration, and flow around hulls and appendages.
Why It's Important
You can probe failure margins, tune scantlings, predict motions and resistance, and test ideas virtually before steel is ever cut.
How to Improve Ansys Skills
Targeted meshing: Sensitivity studies for plate thickness, cutouts, fillets, and contact; inflation layers for boundary layers.
Right physics: Pick material models, damping, turbulence, and wave loading that reflect the problem—not wishful thinking.
Verification: Hand calcs, class formulas, and bench cases to sanity-check outputs before trusting colors.
Parametric studies: Automate sweeps to chase weight, stress hotspots, or efficiency gains.
Coupled workflows: When needed, push into FSI or modal-hydro combinations for nuanced behaviors.
Results you can act on: Reporting that links plots to decisions—design changes, safety factors, and risk notes.
How to Display Ansys Skills on Your Resume
5. MATLAB
MATLAB is a numerical environment for algorithms, data analysis, optimization, and simulation—handy for hydrostatics, seakeeping post-processing, and design automation.
Why It's Important
Crunch big datasets, prototype methods fast, and wrap analyses in repeatable scripts that keep errors at bay.
How to Improve MATLAB Skills
Vectorized thinking: Replace loops where possible; speed matters on dense grids and long time histories.
Toolboxes that matter: Optimization, signal processing, statistics—pick what aligns with your workflows.
Clean I/O: Reliable import/export to CAD, CSV, databases; unit handling you can trust.
Visualization: Plots that reveal patterns—contours, spectrums, phase plots—without ambiguity.
Packaging: Functions, classes, and simple GUIs to reuse logic across projects and teams.
How to Display MATLAB Skills on Your Resume
6. Orca3D
Orca3D brings naval architecture tools into Rhino: hull design, hydrostatics, stability, resistance, and speed–power estimation.
Why It's Important
Design and evaluate in one place. Draw a hull, check displacement and stability, then tweak and check again without leaving the model.
How to Improve Orca3D Skills
Workflow discipline: From concept to hydrostatics to stability reports—build a repeatable sequence.
Hull families: Parameterize key curves and stations to spin quick alternatives that remain fair.
Validation habits: Compare results with known vessels, tank data, or class rules to ground your numbers.
Integration: Hand off geometry cleanly to downstream FEA/CFD and bring results back to iterate.
Reporting: Configure concise, traceable outputs that match client and regulatory expectations.
How to Display Orca3D Skills on Your Resume
7. SolidWorks
SolidWorks supports robust part and assembly modeling, surfacing, and integrated simulation—useful for marine structures, machinery, and outfitting layouts.
Why It's Important
Complex assemblies, clear drawings, and quick design iterations—tied to mass properties and fit—keep projects moving.
How to Improve SolidWorks Skills
Advanced surfacing: For hull components and fairings—boundary surfaces, filled surfaces, curvature control.
Large assembly tactics: Lightweight modes, configurations, envelopes, and display states to keep frame rates sane.
Simulation literacy: Static, buckling, and fatigue checks for brackets, supports, and secondary structure.
Custom automation: Design tables, equations, and macros to cut repetitive modeling time.
PDM discipline: Part numbering, lifecycle states, and check-in rules that prevent version drift.
How to Display SolidWorks Skills on Your Resume
8. GHS (General HydroStatics)
GHS evaluates hydrostatics and stability for intact and damaged conditions, supporting design, loading, and compliance work for ships and offshore units.
Why It's Important
It quantifies buoyancy and stability margins precisely, helping you demonstrate safety and meet flag and class requirements.
How to Improve GHS (General HydroStatics) Skills
Core theory first: Righting arms, KN curves, damage scenarios, permeability—know the physics, trust the results.
Clean geometry and tanks: Accurate compartment models, free surface effects, and sounding tables that reflect reality.
Loading cases: Build scenario libraries—ballast, cargo extremes, wind and ice—to test the full envelope.
Automation: Scripts and batch runs for variant studies and report generation.
Traceable reports: Inputs, assumptions, and clear pass/fail against relevant criteria in one package.
How to Display GHS (General HydroStatics) Skills on Your Resume
9. Navisworks
Navisworks aggregates multidisciplinary 3D models for review, coordination, and simulation—perfect for catching clashes and sequencing work.
Why It's Important
It de-risks construction by finding conflicts early, visualizing the build sequence, and keeping teams aligned around one coordinated model.
How to Improve Navisworks Skills
Clash strategy: Smart rules, groupings, and responsibilities so findings turn into fixes, not noise.
Model hygiene: Naming, origin alignment, units, and update cadence across all trades.
Timeliner: Link schedules to geometry to stress-test plans and resources before the yard commits.
Viewpoints and markup: Curate issues with context, measurements, and comments—then track them to closure.
Rendering for stakeholders: Clean visuals for reviews when words don’t quite carry the point.
How to Display Navisworks Skills on Your Resume
10. DNV Nauticus
DNV Nauticus is a suite for structural design and verification of ship and offshore hulls, aligned with class rules and practical production constraints.
Why It's Important
It accelerates compliance checks, standardizes calculations, and ties design intent to rule-based acceptance with fewer surprises late in the game.
How to Improve DNV Nauticus Skills
Rule fluency: Understand the governing criteria and how the software implements them.
Model setup: Correct geometry partitioning, loads, and boundary conditions that reflect real structure.
Scenario coverage: Global and local checks, fatigue where relevant, and strength in way of openings and discontinuities.
Change management: Reuse setups across revisions; document assumptions so audits are painless.
Result interpretation: Translate numbers into design actions—thickness tweaks, bracket shapes, stiffener spacing.
How to Display DNV Nauticus Skills on Your Resume
11. Maxsurf
Maxsurf is an integrated suite for hull modeling, hydrostatics, stability, and structural evaluation—built for end-to-end vessel design workflows.
Why It's Important
Concept to class checks in one environment, with consistent data flow and fewer translation headaches.
How to Improve Maxsurf Skills
Shape control: Master curves, surfaces, and fairness tools to hit target displacement and performance.
Hydro and stability depth: Configure loading conditions, wind/heeling, and damage cases methodically.
Optimization loops: Use parameter studies to trade weight, space, and performance with evidence.
Interoperability: Cleanly exchange models with FEA/CFD and production systems without geometry rot.
Reporting templates: Consistent, audit-friendly outputs tailored to client and class expectations.
How to Display Maxsurf Skills on Your Resume
12. CFD Analysis
CFD Analysis predicts fluid behavior around hulls, propulsors, and appendages to guide design for performance, seakeeping, and efficiency.
Why It's Important
It trims resistance, sharpens maneuvering, and informs decisions where tow tanks are too slow or too costly.
How to Improve CFD Analysis Skills
Mesh where it matters: Boundary layers, free surface, appendage junctions—refine with intent, not everywhere.
Pick the right models: Turbulence, free-surface capturing, cavitation—fit the model to the physics and resources.
Convergence discipline: Residuals, force histories, grid/time-step studies—prove your solution is stable.
Validation mindset: Benchmark against experiments or trusted cases; quantify error, don’t guess.
Automation and HPC: Batch runs, parametric sweeps, and scalable computing to explore the design space fast.
Actionable post-processing: Isolate loss sources, visualize vortices and wave fields, and tie them to design changes.
How to Display CFD Analysis Skills on Your Resume
