Senior Thermal Engineer - TeraWave

BLUE ORIGIN•Seattle, WA

4d•$156,802 - $219,522

About The Position

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight! Blue Origin is pioneering the future of space-based communications with TeraWave, a revolutionary satellite communications network designed to deliver symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 Tbps anywhere on Earth. This multi-orbit constellation will consist of optically interconnected satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO), providing enterprise-grade connectivity for critical operations worldwide. We are looking for a Senior Thermal Engineer to own the thermal design of our phased array antennas — both satellite payload arrays and ground user terminals. A phased array is one of the most thermally unforgiving pieces of hardware you can put in orbit. High power density across hundreds of packages, in vacuum, where the only ways out are conduction to structure and radiation to space. The arrays operate in bursts, so the problem is transient rather than steady-state: heat has to be absorbed fast, held, and rejected before the next pass. And the failure mode isn't a simple limit exceedance — past a threshold junction temperature the RF front ends lose efficiency and dissipate more power for the same output, so the problem can run away on itself. That makes thermal a first-order constraint on the product, not a downstream check. Radiator area competes with bus size; peak temperature competes with capacity; interface conductance competes with mass, manufacturability, and unit cost at rate. You'd sit in the middle of those trades, early enough that the answers aren't fixed. On the ground side the same physics sets terminal size and weight — heat rejection, not electronics, dominates the industrial design. You'll work both.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Physics, or related field.
8+ years in thermal engineering for aerospace, RF systems, or high-power-density electronics.
Spaceborne thermal design experience: vacuum, radiation heat transfer, flight hardware qualification.
Strong grasp of phased array thermal challenges — dense front-end integration, high areal power density, and the coupling between junction temperature and RF efficiency.
Proficiency with thermal modeling tools (Thermal Desktop, SINDA/FLUINT, ANSYS Icepak, or equivalent), and the judgment to know when a hand calculation should bracket the model.
Working knowledge of materials, coatings, and interface technologies for space and outdoor terrestrial hardware.
Familiarity with environmental and qualification standards (NASA, ESA, MIL-STD or similar).

Nice To Haves

Master's or PhD in a related field.
Both space and terrestrial antenna systems, particularly electronically steered arrays.
Advanced techniques: phase change materials, heat pipes, vapor chambers, loop heat pipes, liquid cooling.
Board- and package-level thermal work — TIM characterization, BGA and lid paths, junction-to-case resistance.
Taking hardware from prototype into volume production, including cost and mass optimization at rate.
Transient thermal analysis coupled to operational planning.

Responsibilities

Own thermal architecture for satellite phased array payloads — RF front ends, beamforming ICs, power electronics — and for ground terminal arrays.
Build and run transient thermal models of dense multi-chip board stacks, from die junction out to structure and radiators.
Drive the interface design that governs performance: mounting and preload, interface materials and bondlines, heat pipes, spreaders, thermal storage.
Define the duty-cycle and operational limits the constellation flies to, working with operations and planning teams so thermal constraints show up as capacity rather than surprises.
Run architecture-level trades and quantify what each buys in degrees, kilograms, and dollars per unit.
Set requirements, margins, and verification plans; execute thermal test articles and correlate models to test.
Design for a high-rate production line. A solution that works once but can't be built repeatably at takt isn't a solution here.
Mentor engineers and help establish how thermal engineering is practiced on a fast-scaling program.