Senior EV Climate & Thermal Calibration Engineer

Rivian; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 122,000 - 152,000; Full time

Job summary

Rivian is seeking a Senior Thermal Development and Calibration Engineer to lead climate comfort feature development from definition through production. You will translate customer intent into actionable requirements, driving cross-functional collaboration across vehicle systems, software, and thermal subsystems.

The role focuses on HVAC/thermal behavior under real conditions and requires strong technical judgment and leadership to ensure launch-ready performance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Automotive Engineering, or related field.
• Minimum 5+ years automotive HVAC, thermal systems, feature development, controls, or calibration.
• Experience in developing and validating vehicle climate comfort behavior.
• Strong understanding of HVAC operation, refrigerant, heat pump systems, airflow, and occupant comfort.

Responsibilities

• Support vehicle-level climate comfort feature development from concept through launch readiness and post-SOP improvement.
• Define feature use cases, operating states, triggers, inhibits, fallback behavior, and customer-facing acceptance criteria.
• Translate climate comfort intent into cross-functional requirements for vehicle systems, software, calibration, and subsystem teams.
• Develop calibration strategies and tuning plans for HVAC and thermal features across milestones.
• Lead calibration maturation for vehicle features across mule, lab car, chamber, road load, and program builds.
• Create and maintain validation plans, DVP inputs, test procedures, and pass/fail criteria aligned to requirements and milestones.
• Plan and execute vehicle-level testing for climate comfort features in chamber, road, and extreme conditions.
• Analyze test data, identify gaps, drive root cause, and collaborate across teams.

Skills

Communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Leadership

Ambiguity tolerance

Strong presentation skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Automotive Engineering, or a related engineering discipline

Tools

CAN

LIN

Ethernet

CANalyzer

CANoe

INCA

Job description

Rivian is seeking a Senior Thermal Development and Calibration Engineer to lead climate comfort feature development from definition through production. You will translate customer intent into actionable requirements, driving cross-functional collaboration across vehicle systems, software, and thermal subsystems.

The role focuses on HVAC/thermal behavior under real conditions and requires strong technical judgment and leadership to ensure launch-ready performance.