Senior Thermal Engineer – Deployable AI/HPC Cooling

Anduril Industries; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 146,000 - 194,000; Full time

Job summary

Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa, CA seeks a Senior Thermal Engineer to own the thermal management of expeditionary AI/HPC data centers—air- and water-side cooling, modular and ruggedized systems designed for forward operating locations.

You will apply heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and HVAC principles to keep high-density compute running reliably in extreme temperatures with limited power, leading prototype builds, testing, and field validation.

Qualifications

• MS or higher in mechanical engineering with a focus on heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and HVAC
• Deep understanding of heat transfer and fluid dynamics
• 5+ years designing thermal management systems for data centers or similar mission-critical infrastructure
• Full-spectrum data center thermal experience including air-side and water-side cooling, heat rejection, chilled water plant design, power density management, and liquid cooling
• Steady-state and transient system modeling of thermal management systems, including HVAC and refrigerant simulations
• Validating and testing data center thermal equipment, with knowledge of operating standards
• Stay updated on latest data center thermal management technologies
• CAD experience with Siemens NX or SolidWorks

Responsibilities

• Own the thermal design and analysis of deployable data center cooling systems—air-side and water-side cooling, heat rejection, chilled water plant, and liquid cooling—from rack and chip level up through the full facility
• Use first principles to discern the right level of analysis, running hand calcs, spreadsheets, and MATLAB/Python first-order models
• Define cooling architecture and heat-rejection strategies to keep equipment within limits as power density scales
• Develop cooling approaches for high-density racks and trade off air, liquid, and hybrid cooling for modular systems
• Collaborate with electrical, mechanical, and facilities engineers to characterize IT heat loads
• Weigh cooling architectures against reliability, efficiency, and total cost for trade studies
• Own thermal FEA/CFD and system models, predict facility performance and set limits for commissioning
• Lead prototype builds, field testing, commissioning, and validation of cooling designs
• Present thermal status at reviews with timelines and status
• Develop internal tools to improve analysis effectiveness and efficiency
• Support failure reviews with test data and thermal analysis

Skills

Heat transfer

Fluid dynamics

Data center thermal design

HVAC

Python/MATLAB

CAD (Siemens NX)

Validation/testing

Security clearance

Education

MS or higher in mechanical engineering

Heat transfer/CFD focus

Tools

Siemens NX

SolidWorks

STAR-CCM+

ANSYS

Icepak

Job description

Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa, CA seeks a Senior Thermal Engineer to own the thermal management of expeditionary AI/HPC data centers—air- and water-side cooling, modular and ruggedized systems designed for forward operating locations.

You will apply heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and HVAC principles to keep high-density compute running reliably in extreme temperatures with limited power, leading prototype builds, testing, and field validation.