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Salary: USD 100,000 - 300,000 / annual
Cowboy Space Corp., founded in 2024 by Baiju Bhatt (Robinhood co-founder) and backed by leading investors, is building infrastructure to power the orbital economy. The company operates satellites in Low Earth Orbit to collect sunlight and enable new capabilities—from powering on-orbit compute to transmitting energy via infrared lasers and delivering secure, high-bandwidth optical data.
As Mechanical Engineer – Active Cooling, you will own the liquid cooling loop that keeps on-orbit GPU compute hardware temperature-controlled. This is a hands-on role at the intersection of fluid systems and mechanical design. You will architect the pumped coolant loop, select and size components (pumps, valves, accumulators, cold plates, instrumentation), and own mechanical packaging, structures, and interfaces that integrate it into the spacecraft. You will drive this hardware end-to-end: from concept and analysis through ground testbeds, qualification, and on-orbit operation.
Key responsibilities include designing the spacecraft liquid cooling loop for GPU compute from concept through flight; performing pressure-drop, flow, and thermal-fluid analyses to size the loop and predict system behavior across the mission profile; designing mechanical packaging, structures, mounts, and mechanisms; designing, building, and operating ground testbeds and dev rigs; developing and executing proof-pressure, leak, flow, thermal-vacuum, and qualification test programs; authoring schematics, drawings, interface control documents, and analysis reports; selecting and integrating coolant loop components; diagnosing and resolving cooling-system anomalies; and partnering with thermal, power, structures, avionics, propulsion, and software teams.
Required qualifications: BS or MS in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering; 3+ years designing or analyzing fluid systems and/or mechanical hardware in aerospace, automotive, energy, data-center cooling, or similar high-performance environments; strong fluids fundamentals (compressible/incompressible flow, thermodynamics, heat transfer, pressure systems); hands-on experience with fluid components; experience taking hardware from concept through build and test; strong mechanical design fundamentals; proficiency with CAD (NX, SolidWorks, or similar); experience in fast-paced, hardware-focused development environments.
Preferred qualifications include direct experience designing pumped liquid cooling loops, two-phase cooling, or cold-plate systems for high heat-flux electronics or GPU hardware; experience designing for space environments and spacecraft structures/mechanisms; 3+ years with spacecraft, launch vehicle, or satellite fluid/thermal systems; familiarity with thermal control systems; experience with FEA and thermal/fluid simulation tools; knowledge of aerospace standards (MIL-SPEC, NASA-STD, ECSS); hands-on prototyping, machining, or pressure vessel design experience; and startup/early-stage hardware experience.
