Staff Engineer, Aircraft Thermal Systems (RX) (R6002)

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.