Thermal Engineer - Fully Remote | Up to $120/hr

Obsidian; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 120,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor is seeking experienced Mechanical Engineers to support an advanced engineering and AI research initiative with a leading technology organisation. We are looking for deeply hands‑on engineers who have designed, analysed, built, tested, validated, or troubleshot real‑world mechanical and electromechanical systems in production environments.

You will review and evaluate mechanical designs, engineering analyses, simulation results, test methodologies, and troubleshooting approaches, applying

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional mechanical engineering experience.
• Hands-on hardware development, analysis, testing, validation, integration, bring-up, or troubleshooting.
• Experience as responsible engineer for real hardware or physical systems.
• Deep expertise in structural/stress, thermal, mechanical design, or dynamics and controls.
• Proficient with CAD/CAE, FEA, CFD, data acquisition, and root-cause analysis.

Responsibilities

• Apply hands-on mechanical engineering expertise to complex tasks involving real systems.
• Review and evaluate mechanical designs, analyses, simulation results, test methodologies, and troubleshooting approaches.
• Analyse trade-offs in structures, materials, thermal performance, and manufacturability.
• Assess feasibility and risk of engineering solutions for real-world problems.
• Develop technical documentation and provide clear engineering feedback.

Skills

Structural/stress analysis

Thermal engineering

Mechanical design

Dynamics & controls

Hands-on hardware development

CAD/CAE

FEA/CFD

Test & validation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering

Tools

CAD/CAE tools

FEA

CFD/thermal simulation

Data acquisition

Job description

Mercor is seeking experienced Mechanical Engineers to support an advanced engineering and AI research initiative with a leading technology organisation. We are looking for deeply hands‑on engineers who have designed, analysed, built, tested, validated, or troubleshot real‑world mechanical and electromechanical systems in production environments.

Relevant backgrounds include:

• Structural / Stress Engineering
• Thermal Engineering
• Mechanical Design Engineering
• Dynamics & Controls Engineering

This role is particularly well suited for engineers who have worked directly on complex physical products and can bring practical engineering judgment to evaluating technical designs, analyses, testing workflows, failure modes, and real‑world engineering problems.

Key Responsibilities

• Apply hands‑on mechanical engineering expertise to technically complex engineering tasks involving real physical systems and products.
• Review and evaluate mechanical designs, engineering analyses, simulation results, test methodologies, and troubleshooting approaches.
• Analyse engineering trade‑offs involving structures, materials, thermal performance, mechanical design, dynamics, vibration, controls, reliability, and manufacturability.
• Assess the technical correctness and practical feasibility of engineering solutions generated for real‑world mechanical engineering problems.
• Identify incorrect assumptions, unrealistic boundary conditions, design deficiencies, failure modes, and potential implementation or reliability risks.
• Develop or review technically rigorous engineering problems, reference solutions, evaluation criteria, and supporting technical documentation.
• Draw on practical experience with design, simulation, prototyping, hardware integration, test, validation, qualification, debugging, and manufacturing.
• Provide clear technical feedback grounded in real‑world engineering experience and established engineering principles.

You’re a Strong Fit If You Have

• 5+ years of professional mechanical engineering experience, including at least 3 years of recent, actively hands‑on experience in hardware development, analysis, testing, validation, integration, bring‑up, or troubleshooting— not solely program or people management.
• Demonstrated experience as the responsible engineer for real hardware or physical systems, owning meaningful portions of the engineering lifecycle from requirements and analysis through design, prototype development, testing, validation, qualification, and manufacturing readiness.
• Deep technical expertise in at least one core domain: structural/stress analysis and FEA; thermal analysis, heat transfer, and thermal management; mechanical design and product development; or dynamics, vibration, mechanisms, and controls.
• Strong practical command of materials, loads and boundary conditions, structural margins, fatigue, thermal constraints, tolerances/GD&T, component selection, reliability, manufacturability, system integration, and engineering failure‑mode analysis.
• Extensive hands‑on experience analyzing, testing, debugging, and validating physical hardware, using relevant engineering tools such as CAD/CAE, FEA, CFD/thermal simulation, dynamic or controls simulation, test instrumentation, data acquisition, and structured root‑cause analysis.
• Proven experience developing hardware in real‑world product or manufacturing environments, ideally across aerospace/defence, space, automotive/EV, semiconductors, consumer electronics, robotics/eVTOL, industrial/energy, or medical devices— e.g., Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Tesla, Rivian, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Apple, Google, Meta, Skydio, Shield AI, Joby, Boston Dynamics, Siemens, GE Aerospace, ABB, Medtronic, or Intuitive Surgical— with the ability to clearly explain technical decisions, design trade‑offs, test results, and failure mechanisms.

Preferred Background

Experience working for a company that designs, builds, tests, and manufactures physical hardware products or systems is strongly preferred. Relevant organisations may include, but are not limited to:

• Aerospace & Defense:Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Boeing, General Atomics, L3Harris, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Honeywell Aerospace, Textron
• Space:Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Firefly Aerospace, Sierra Space, Astranis, Planet, Maxar, Axiom Space
• Automotive & EV:Tesla, Rivian, General Motors, Ford, Lucid, Waymo, Zoox, Aptiv, Bosch
• Semiconductors:NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Intel, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Marvell, Micron, NXP, Infineon
• Consumer Electronics & Computing:Apple, Google Hardware, Meta Reality Labs, Microsoft Devices, Amazon, Samsung, Garmin, Sonos
• Drones, eVTOL & Robotics:Skydio, Shield AI, Zipline, Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation, Boston Dynamics, Figure, Agility Robotics, Wing
• Industrial, Energy & Medical Devices:Siemens, GE Aerospace, GE Vernova, ABB, Schneider Electric, Rockwell Automation, Enphase, Medtronic, Intuitive Surgical

Candidates from comparable hardware‑focused organisations are equally encouraged to apply.

Why Join

• Apply your mechanical engineering expertise to technically challenging problems at the intersection of advanced hardware engineering and AI research.
• Work on projects where practical, real‑world engineering experience and first‑principles technical judgment are highly valued.
• Help improve how advanced AI systems reason about mechanical design, structural analysis, thermal systems, dynamics, controls, testing, and hardware troubleshooting.
• Contribute remotely with flexible engagement structures alongside experienced engineers and researchers.
• Work on problems that require genuine engineering judgment and hands‑on industry expertise rather than purely theoretical knowledge.