Staff Engineer, Aircraft Thermal Systems - Ranger (R6351)

About the role

Shield AI, a defense-tech company developing aircraft and autonomy software, is hiring a Staff (L4) Aircraft Thermal Systems Engineer for its Ranger (R6351) Group 5 UAV fighter aircraft. The engineer takes full technical ownership of thermal analysis, design and vehicle integration, working from first principles to characterize aircraft-level thermal environments, evaluate heat-transfer pathways, develop cooling solutions and deliver robust thermal systems and hardware in a rapid-iteration development environment.

Key responsibilities

• Define and mature aircraft-level thermal environments and thermal management solutions for vehicle bays, hot surfaces and other thermal-critical installations.
• Perform first-principles heat transfer and fluid mechanics calculations, and develop analytical, finite-difference and CFD models for conduction, convection, radiation and coupled thermal-fluid behavior.
• Design and evaluate active and passive cooling solutions, including heat-rejection paths, airflow, ducting, thermal interfaces and hardware.
• Generate thermal requirements, assess technical risks and recommend designs that balance thermal performance with power, mass, volume, maintainability and integration constraints.
• Develop thermal hardware layouts and CAD models, and resolve interfaces with structures, avionics, fluid systems, EWIS and adjacent mechanical systems.
• Define qualification and verification test plans, design test rigs, support instrumentation and data acquisition, and correlate models with test data.
• Author technical specifications and statements of work, evaluate suppliers and drive supplier execution through prototype build and test.
• Execute qualification tests per MIL-STD-810, mature the design into production-ready hardware and support MIL-HDBK-516 Airworthiness Certification.
• Communicate findings through design reviews and technical reports and guide cross-disciplinary teams.

Required profile

• US citizen with an active Secret or higher security clearance.
• 7 to 12 years of direct experience in aerospace thermal engineering, environmental control systems, or vehicle thermal and fluid system development.
• B.S. or M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering or a related technical discipline.
• Proven ability to self-direct, prioritize technical tasks without oversight and deliver functional hardware under tight timelines.

Required skills

• Deep mastery of thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid dynamics applied to aircraft or defense systems.
• First-principles hand calculations, finite-difference methods and CFD or thermal-analysis tools such as FloEFD, STAR-CCM+, Thermal Desktop or equivalent.
• Active and passive cooling design for aircraft bays, engine bays and hot surfaces.
• 3D CAD modeling, thermal hardware layout, routing and drawing release with Siemens NX, CATIA, Creo, SolidWorks or equivalent PLM workflows.
• Sourcing COTS/custom aerospace components, driving suppliers to schedule, and building benchtop or vehicle-level test setups.

Preferred: high-altitude aircraft thermal management experience, hands-on thermal and fluid system testing and instrumentation, knowledge of aerospace materials and manufacturing, multi-disciplinary system integration background, and familiarity with MIL-STD-810, MIL-HDBK-310, RTCA DO-160, SAE AIR and ARP standards.