SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Shield AI, a venture-backed defense-tech company, is seeking a Staff Engineer for Thermal Engineering to serve as the technical owner and authority for avionics thermal management across the V-BAT aircraft platform. This role spans the complete product lifecycle from concept through design, analysis, qualification, and production.
You will define avionics thermal architecture, derive thermal requirements, and establish thermal environments and interface requirements for avionics bays, enclosures, and components. You'll develop, review, and approve analytical, numerical, and computational heat transfer and fluid flow models using hand calculations and CFD tools such as FloEFD, setting modeling standards, assumptions, and margin policies for the team.
Key responsibilities include leading trade studies and system architecture decisions that balance thermal performance against power, weight, volume, cost, maintainability, and schedule. You'll define qualification and verification strategy, lead test planning and instrumentation, correlate models with test data, and support environmental qualification to standards such as MIL-STD-810 and RTCA DO-160.
You will influence electrical and PCBA design direction early in the process, including component placement, power dissipation budgets, and thermal design rules. You'll author thermal specifications and statements of work, evaluate suppliers, and provide technical direction for thermal hardware such as heat sinks, cold plates, heat pipes, vapor chambers, and fans.
Additionally, you'll mentor and develop junior and senior engineers, review their analyses and test plans, guide cross-disciplinary teams in applying thermal and fluid fundamentals, and identify program-level thermal risks early while proposing and driving mitigations to closure.
REQUIREMENTS:
- B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related discipline
- Minimum 8 years of professional experience in avionics or electronics thermal engineering, including technical ownership of thermal solutions carried through qualification and into production
- Expert knowledge of heat transfer (conduction, convection, radiation) and fluid mechanics, with ability to validate complex models using first-principles calculations
- Proven experience defining and integrating active and passive cooling solutions at component, subsystem, and system level
- In-depth knowledge of thermal management design elements (TIMs, spreaders, heat sinks, cold plates, vapor chambers, heat pipes, fans) and their selection, qualification, and manufacturing
- Advanced proficiency with thermal analysis and CFD tools (ANSYS Icepak, FloEFD, STAR-CCM+), including setup, review, and model correlation against test data
- Experience with CAD design tools (NX, SolidWorks, or similar) and PLM-controlled design release
- Demonstrated experience planning and executing thermal qualification and verification testing, including instrumentation and data acquisition
- Track record of technical leadership: leading trade studies, presenting at design reviews, and influencing cross-functional design decisions
- Experience mentoring engineers and reviewing their technical work
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Proven ability to self-direct, prioritize without oversight, and deliver in a fast-paced, startup environment
PREFERRED:
- M.S. in a relevant engineering discipline
- Experience with high-altitude aircraft avionics cooling and thermal design
- Experience with aerospace environmental and airworthiness requirements (MIL-STD-810, MIL-HDBK-310, RTCA DO-160, MIL-HDBK-516)
- In-depth knowledge of aircraft integration constraints (power, weight, volume, maintainability, safety)
- Knowledge of materials and manufacturing methods relevant to thermal management
- Experience with transient and duty-cycle thermal analysis and system-level thermal budgets
- Experience with supplier development and technical oversight of thermal hardware suppliers
