Senior Thermal Engineer: High-Power Data Center Cooling

Arista; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 275,000; Full time

Job summary

Arista Networks in Santa Clara, CA seeks a Senior Thermal Engineer to tackle thermal design challenges for high‑end switching products. You will shape thermal strategy and collaborate with electrical design and validation teams to ensure robust cooling performance.

The role requires hands-on experience with Icepak and CFD/FEA tools, plus strong communication skills. Base pay is $180k–$275k with discretionary bonus and equity; total compensation ranges up to $655k depending on performance and

Qualifications

• MS Degree in Mechanical Engineering; Ph.D. preferred.
• Minimum 5 years of direct professional experience in thermal design and analysis of electronic appliances using Icepak, FloTHERM, SmartCFD.
• Experience with high power (>800W) SoC liquid cooling thermal models and system-level analysis.
• Knowledge of heat transfer modes and heat sink design, heat pipes and thermal interface materials.
• ProEngineer (PTC Creo) experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Develop thermal cooling strategies for next-generation, high-performance switching products.
• Perform complete thermal analysis and design using Icepak.
• Support thermal analysis requests from hardware team, product management team and other cross functional teams with either spreadsheet calculations or detailed simulation results.
• Capable of conducting different engineering experimental tests to verify design and correlate with computational results.

Skills

Thermal design

CFD/FEA simulation

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical communication

Education

MS in Mechanical Engineering

PhD preferred

Tools

Icepak

FloTHERM

SmartCFD

ProEngineer / PTC Creo

Job description

Arista Networks in Santa Clara, CA seeks a Senior Thermal Engineer to tackle thermal design challenges for high‑end switching products. You will shape thermal strategy and collaborate with electrical design and validation teams to ensure robust cooling performance.

The role requires hands-on experience with Icepak and CFD/FEA tools, plus strong communication skills. Base pay is $180k–$275k with discretionary bonus and equity; total compensation ranges up to $655k depending on performance and