Senior Thermal CFD Engineer - Marine & High-Power Systems

Panthalassa; Portland (OR); On-site; USD 155,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance to Portland

Health insurance

Equity in the company

401(k) and FSA options

Job summary

Panthalassa in Portland, Oregon, seeks a Senior Thermal Engineer to own the end-to-end thermal simulation workflow for high-power marine and compute systems. You will drive rapid design iteration using CFD, first-principles analysis, and GPU-accelerated methods, collaborating with mechanical, electrical, and payload teams to translate heat loads into robust cooling architectures.

This onsite role combines hands-on CFD with system-level engineering, including geometry prep, meshing, validation,

Qualifications

• Strong background in thermal engineering, heat transfer and fluid mechanics.
• Deep experience with thermal CFD for high-power systems.
• Ability to use CFD as an engineering tool, not a black box.
• Translate heat loads into system-level cooling targets.
• Experience full CFD workflow: prep, meshing, solver setup, validation.
• Hands-on with STAR-CCM+, ANSYS Fluent, HELYX/OpenFOAM.
• Able to move between analytical and detailed CFD as needed.
• Experience collaborating with mechanical/electrical teams.
• NX CAD workflow familiarity is preferred.
• Bachelor's degree in mech/ aerospace; advanced degree preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own thermal simulation workflows for onboard payloads and cooling systems.
• Build fast CFD workflows enabling rapid design iteration.
• Translate inputs into system-level thermal requirements.
• Define cooling interfaces and targets for board layouts and enclosures.
• Validate simulations against prototype tests and measurements.
• Develop reusable simulation pipelines and templates.

Skills

Thermal CFD

Heat transfer

Numerical simulation

CFD tools

Mechanical collaboration

GPU-accelerated CFD

NX familiarity

Communication skills

First-principles reasoning

Education

Bachelor's degree in mechanical or aerospace engineering

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

STAR-CCM+

ANSYS Fluent

HELYX/OpenFOAM

Job description

Panthalassa in Portland, Oregon, seeks a Senior Thermal Engineer to own the end-to-end thermal simulation workflow for high-power marine and compute systems. You will drive rapid design iteration using CFD, first-principles analysis, and GPU-accelerated methods, collaborating with mechanical, electrical, and payload teams to translate heat loads into robust cooling architectures.

This onsite role combines hands-on CFD with system-level engineering, including geometry prep, meshing, validation,