Senior Engineer, Avionics Thermal Engineering (R5298)

As a Senior Thermal Engineer at Shield AI, you will own the design, analysis, and integration of aircraft avionics thermal management systems and electronics cooling. You will develop and validate thermal models, provide technical leadership in trade studies and architecture decisions, and drive test planning and data analysis. This role involves guiding cross-disciplinary teams and communicating findings through design reviews and reports.

Responsibilities

• Own thermal solutions for unmanned aerial vehicle avionics including design, analysis, and test.
• Develop and validate analytical, numerical, and computational models for heat transfer and fluid flow using hand calculations and CFD tools such as FloEFD.
• Provide technical leadership in trade studies, system architecture decisions, and risk assessments.
• Drive test planning, instrumentation, and data analysis to correlate models with experimental results.
• Guide cross-disciplinary teams in applying thermal/fluid fundamentals.
• Communicate technical findings clearly through design reviews, and written reports.
• Proactively identify risks, propose solutions, and influence electrical and/or PCBA design direction.

Requirements

• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related discipline.
• Minimum 4 years of professional experience in avionics or electronics thermal engineering.
• Strong expertise in heat transfer (conduction, convection, radiation) and fluid mechanics.
• Strong understanding of active and passive cooling solutions and their integration at component and system level.
• Understanding of thermal management design elements including TIMs, spreaders, heat sinks, vapor chambers, heat pipes, and fans
• Proficiency with thermal analysis and CFD tools (e.g., ANSYS Icepak, FloEFD, STAR-CCM+).
• Experience with CAD design tools such as NX, SolidWorks, or similar.
• Demonstrated experience applying first-principles reasoning to complex engineering problems.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to learn and adapt quickly to new tools, processes, and technical challenges in a fast paced, startup environment.

Nice to have

• M.S. in a relevant engineering discipline.
• Experience with high altitude aircraft avionics cooling and thermal design.
• Familiarity with aircraft integration constraints (power, weight, volume, maintainability, safety).
• Hands-on experience with thermal and fluid system testing, instrumentation, and validation.
• Knowledge of materials and manufacturing methods relevant to thermal management

Benefits

• Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
• Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)