# Staff Engineer, Aircraft Thermal Systems (RX) (R6002) **Company**: Shield AI **Location**: Dallas, Texas **Work arrangement**: onsite **Experience**: staff **Job type**: Full Time Employee **Salary**: USD 146,480-219,720 per-year-salary **Category**: Engineering **Industry**: Technology **Apply**: https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/8f69a723-ebc7-47ab-89c3-30700bb7f00b?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply **Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_f0a457e2-1a2 ## Description Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. As a Staff (L4) Aircraft Thermal Systems Engineer, you will take full technical ownership of thermal analysis, design, and vehicle integration for a Group 5 UAV fighter aircraft. ## Responsibilities - Thermal System Ownership: Define and mature aircraft-level thermal environments and thermal management solutions for vehicle bays, hot surfaces, and other thermal-critical installations. - Thermal Analysis and Modeling: Perform first-principles heat transfer and fluid mechanics calculations, then develop analytical, finite-difference, and CFD models to characterize conduction, convection, radiation, and coupled thermal-fluid behavior. - Cooling System Design: Design and evaluate active and passive cooling solutions, including heat-rejection paths, airflow, ducting, thermal interfaces, and hardware needed to manage vehicle thermal loads. - Requirements and Risk Management: Generate thermal requirements, assess technical risks, and develop actionable design recommendations that balance thermal performance with vehicle power, mass, volume, maintainability, and integration constraints. - Vehicle and Hardware Integration: Develop thermal hardware layouts and CAD models, and resolve interfaces with structures, avionics, fluid systems, EWIS, and adjacent mechanical systems. - Test and Validation: Define qualification and verification test plans, design test rigs, support instrumentation and data acquisition, and correlate analytical and computational models with test data. - Hardware and Supplier Execution: Author technical specifications and statements of work for thermal hardware, evaluate suppliers, and drive supplier technical execution through prototype build and test. - Qualification and Hardware Delivery: Define and execute qualification test plans per MIL-STD-810, using results to mature the design into production-ready hardware and support MIL-HDBK-516 Airworthiness Certification. - Technical Leadership: Communicate thermal findings through design reviews and technical reports, guide cross-disciplinary teams in applying thermal and fluid fundamentals, and influence vehicle-level thermal design decisions. ## Required Qualifications - Clearance required: US Citizens Only & Must have an Active Secret or higher clearance. - Experience: 7 to 12 years of direct experience in aerospace thermal engineering, environmental control systems, or vehicle thermal and fluid system development. - Education: B.S. or M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical discipline. - Core Fundamentals: Deep mastery of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluid dynamics applied to aircraft or defense systems. - Modeling and Analysis: Demonstrated capability with first-principles hand calculations, finite-difference methods, and CFD or thermal-analysis tools such as FloEFD, STAR-CCM+, Thermal Desktop, or equivalent. - Thermal System Design: Demonstrated ability to design active and passive cooling solutions and manage thermal environments for aircraft bays, engine bays, hot surfaces, or comparable aerospace installations. - CAD and PLM: Experience in 3D CAD modeling, thermal hardware layout, routing, and drawing release with Siemens NX, CATIA, Creo, SolidWorks, or equivalent PLM workflows. - Hardware and Supplier Execution: Proven track record sourcing COTS/custom aerospace components, driving suppliers to schedule, and assembling benchtop or vehicle-level test setups. - Autonomy: Demonstrated ability to self-direct, prioritize technical tasks without oversight, and deliver functional hardware under tight timelines. ## Preferred Qualifications - Experience with high-altitude aircraft thermal management, analysis, and design. - Hands-on experience with thermal and fluid system testing, instrumentation, data acquisition, and validation. - Knowledge of materials and manufacturing methods relevant to aerospace thermal management. - Background in multi-disciplinary system integration spanning avionics, fluid systems, and systems engineering. - Familiarity with aerospace environmental and airworthiness requirements and test standards, including MIL-STD-810, MIL-HDBK-310, RTCA DO-160, and SAE AIR or ARP standards. ## Skills ### Required - thermodynamics - heat transfer - fluid dynamics - thermal analysis - CFD - thermal system design - CAD - PLM - aerospace engineering ### Nice to have - high-altitude aircraft thermal management - thermal and fluid system testing - instrumentation - data acquisition - validation - materials and manufacturing methods - multi-disciplinary system integration - aerospace environmental and airworthiness requirements --- Source: [Apply at jobs.lever.co](https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/8f69a723-ebc7-47ab-89c3-30700bb7f00b?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply)