Senior Thermal Engineer — Defense Hardware & CFD/FEA

Anduril Industries, Inc.; Costa Mesa (CA); On-site; USD 146,000 - 194,000; Full time

Job summary

Anduril Industries, Inc. in Costa Mesa, CA is seeking a Senior Thermal Engineer to own thermal design and analysis for advanced defense hardware across drones, aircraft, missiles, and related flight systems.

You will apply heat transfer and CFD/FEA methods, balancing hand calculations with detailed simulations to guide fast design decisions, while collaborating with electrical, mechanical, aerospace, software, and systems engineers.

Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Applied Physics, or related field with focus on heat transfer, fluid dynamics, thermal sciences, or thermal systems.
• 5+ years of experience designing, analyzing, or validating thermal systems for integrated hardware products.
• Strong first-principles understanding of heat transfer and fluid dynamics (conduction, convection, radiation, fluid flow, transient behavior).
• Experience supporting thermal design for aerospace, aircraft, rocket, missile, UAV, defense, or other high-performance hardware.
• Experience using thermal analysis, modeling, simulation, and/or physical test data to drive design decisions for passive or active thermal management.
• Ability to communicate technical tradeoffs clearly across engineering, program and customer stakeholders, and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Own thermal design and analysis for integrated hardware products, including drones, aircraft, missiles, or related defense systems.
• Use first-principles engineering judgment to determine the right level of analysis for each design decision, including hand calculations, spreadsheets, MATLAB / Python models, FEA, and CFD.
• Define thermal architectures that can withstand rugged environments, demanding flight envelopes, and operational edge cases, including hot, cold, transient, and mission-specific thermal conditions.
• Partner with electrical, mechanical, aerospace, software, and systems engineers to document power dissipation, operating modes, thermal constraints, and design tradeoffs.
• Build and maintain thermal FEA / CFD models to predict system performance, establish design limits, and define red / yellow operating thresholds for test and field use.
• Define and execute prototype builds and thermal tests, including CAD support, sensor selection, DAQ setup, data post-processing, and results documentation.
• Present thermal status, risks, tradeoffs, timelines, and recommendations in internal design reviews and customer-facing technical reviews.
• Develop internal tools, workflows, or analysis methods that improve speed, consistency, and quality of thermal decision-making.
• Support failure reviews and root-cause investigations using test data, thermal analysis, and first-principles reasoning.

Skills

Heat transfer

Fluid dynamics

First-principles reasoning

Thermal modeling

Communication

Education

MS or PhD in Mechanical Engineering / Aerospace Engineering / Applied Physics

Tools

STAR-CCM+

ANSYS

Icepak

Flotherm

SolidWorks

Siemens NX

Job description

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

About the Team

The Thermal Engineering team enables Anduril’s rapid hardware development cycle by ensuring advanced defense systems perform reliably in demanding real-world environments. The team works across high-power, tightly integrated products where thermal architecture, analysis, testing, and cross-functional design decisions directly affect product performance, reliability, and mission success.

About the Job

We are looking for a Senior Thermal Engineer to join our team in Costa Mesa, CA . In this role, you will own thermal design and analysis for advanced defense hardware across drones,aircraft, missiles, and related flight systems.

This role is ideal for someone with deep heat transfer and fluid dynamics fundamentals, strong thermal analysis capability, and the practical judgment to choose the right level of analysis, from first-order hand calculations through detailed FEA / CFD, to guide fast design decisions.

What You'll Do

• Own thermal design and analysis for integrated hardware products, including drones,aircraft, missiles, or related defense systems.
• Use first-principles engineering judgment to determine the right level of analysis for each design decision, including hand calculations, spreadsheets, MATLAB / Python models, FEA, and CFD.
• Define thermal architectures that can withstand rugged environments, demanding flight envelopes, and operational edge cases, including hot, cold, transient, and mission-specific thermal conditions.
• Partner with electrical, mechanical, aerospace, software, and systems engineers to document power dissipation, operating modes, thermal constraints, and design tradeoffs.
• Build and maintain thermal FEA / CFD models to predict system performance, establish design limits, and define red / yellow operating thresholds for test and field use.
• Define and execute prototype builds and thermal tests, including CAD support, sensor selection, DAQ setup, data post-processing, and results documentation.
• Present thermal status, risks, tradeoffs, timelines, and recommendations in internal design reviews and customer-facing technical reviews.
• Develop internal tools, workflows, or analysis methods that improve speed, consistency, and quality of thermal decision-making.
• Support failure reviews and root-cause investigations using test data, thermal analysis, and first-principles reasoning.

Required Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Applied Physics, or a related field with a focus on heat transfer, fluid dynamics, thermal sciences, or thermal systems.
• 5+ years of experience designing, analyzing, or validating thermal systems for integrated hardware products.
• Strong first-principles understanding of heat transfer and fluid dynamics, including conduction, convection, radiation, fluid flow, and transient thermal behavior.
• Experience supporting thermal design for aerospace, aircraft, rocket, missile, UAV, defense, or other high-performance hardware systems.
• Experience using thermal analysis, modeling, simulation, and/or physical test data to drive design decisions for passive or active thermal management systems.
• Ability to communicate technical tradeoffs clearly across engineering, program, and customer stakeholders, and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Top Secret security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with thermal analysis tools such as STAR-CCM+, ANSYS,Icepak,Flotherm, or comparable FEA / CFD platforms.
• Experience using MATLAB, Python, spreadsheets, or similar tools for first-order thermal modeling, transient analysis, or engineering trade studies.
• Experience designing thermal hardware such as heat sinks, cold plates, fans, pumps, heat exchangers, thermal interface materials, liquid cooling systems, or air-cooling systems.
• Experience planning or executing thermal tests, including sensor selection, data acquisition, data post-processing, and correlation of test results to analysis.
• Experience with SolidWorks, Siemens NX, or comparable CAD tools.
• Experience supporting formal design reviews, customer reviews, flight test, qualification testing, or fielded hardware.
• Experience developing reusable analysis tools, automation workflows, reduced-order models, or other methods that improve analysis speed and consistency.
• Strong motivation to support Anduril’s mission of defending the United States and allied partners.

US Salary Range

$146,000 - $194,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits .

Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams

Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.

To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:

No Financial Requests:Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.

• Please always verify communications:
  • Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an @anduril.com address.
  • Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to [e-mail] .

Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach:If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.

What to Do If You Suspect Fraud:Should you encounter any questionable or fraudulent outreach claiming to be from Anduril, please report it immediately to [e-mail] . Your proactive caution is invaluable in protecting your personal information and upholding the security and trustworthiness of our recruitment efforts.

By submitting your application, you consent to Anduril Industries using a third-party service provider to conduct pre-employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening and assessing potential risks as part of your application process. This third-party service provider provides risk-intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public-record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third-party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Use of this provider helps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and protect technology, intellectual property, and organizational security.

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