Senior Thermal Engineer, Avionics

About the role

Shield AI, a defense-tech company developing aircraft and autonomy software, is hiring a Senior Thermal Engineer in Seattle. You will own the design, analysis and integration of aircraft avionics thermal management systems and electronics cooling, working alongside mission-driven teammates.

Key responsibilities

• Own thermal solutions for UAV 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.
• Lead 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 and fluid fundamentals.
• Communicate findings through design reviews and written reports.
• Identify risks, propose solutions and influence electrical and/or PCBA design direction.

Required profile

• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering or a related discipline.
• At least 4 years of professional experience in avionics or electronics thermal engineering.
• Demonstrated experience applying first-principles reasoning to complex engineering problems.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to learn quickly in a fast-paced startup environment.

Required skills

• Heat transfer (conduction, convection, radiation) and fluid mechanics.
• Active and passive cooling solutions, including TIMs, spreaders, heat sinks, vapor chambers, heat pipes and fans.
• Thermal analysis and CFD tools such as ANSYS Icepak, FloEFD and STAR-CCM+.
• CAD tools such as NX, SolidWorks or similar.

Preferred: M.S. degree, high-altitude aircraft avionics cooling experience, knowledge of aircraft integration constraints (power, weight, volume, maintainability, safety), hands-on thermal and fluid system testing, and knowledge of materials and manufacturing methods.