Thermal Design Engineer

About The Role

We are looking for a Thermal Design Engineer to join our team in Costa Mesa, CA. This role is ideal for someone early in their career with strong heat transfer and fluid dynamics fundamentals, who wants to grow into full ownership of thermal design problems in a fast-paced environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Support thermal design and analysis for integrated hardware products, including drones, aircraft, missiles, or related defense systems.
• Apply first-principles engineering judgment using hand calculations, spreadsheets, and MATLAB/Python models to inform design decisions.
• Build and maintain thermal FEA/CFD models to predict system performance and establish design limits.
• Support prototype builds and thermal tests, including sensor selection, DAQ setup, data post-processing, and results documentation.
• Contribute to defining thermal architectures for rugged environments, demanding flight envelopes, and mission-specific thermal conditions.
• Partner with electrical, mechanical, aerospace, and systems engineers to document power dissipation, operating modes, and thermal constraints.
• Present thermal analysis results and recommendations in internal design reviews.
• Develop internal tools, workflows, or analysis methods that improve speed and quality of thermal decision-making.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• MS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Applied Physics, or a related field with a focus on heat transfer, fluid dynamics, thermal sciences, or thermal systems.
• Strong first-principles understanding of heat transfer and fluid dynamics, including conduction, convection, radiation, fluid flow, and transient thermal behavior.
• Coursework, research, or internship experience in thermal analysis, modeling, or testing.
• Experience with MATLAB, Python, or similar tools for engineering analysis.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to cross-functional teams.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• 1-3 years of industry experience in thermal engineering for aerospace, defense, or high-performance hardware systems.
• Experience with thermal analysis tools such as STAR-CCM+, ANSYS, Icepak, Flotherm, or comparable FEA/CFD platforms.
• Experience with CAD tools such as SolidWorks or Siemens NX.
• Graduate research in thermal-fluid systems, electronics cooling, aerothermal analysis, or related areas.
• Exposure to thermal testing, including instrumentation, data acquisition, and test-to-model correlation.
• Strong motivation to support Anduril's mission.