(Fastwater Staffing) SENIOR THERMAL ENGINEER

HIKINEX

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

This role involves owning the thermal design and analysis for integrated hardware products such as drones, aircraft, missiles, or related defense systems. The engineer will utilize first-principles engineering judgment for analysis, define thermal architectures for rugged environments, and collaborate with cross-functional teams. Responsibilities include building and maintaining thermal models, defining and executing prototype builds and tests, presenting thermal status to stakeholders, developing internal tools, and supporting failure investigations.

Requirements

• Must be a U.S. Citizen
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Top Secret security clearance
• 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.

Nice To Haves

• 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 Client’s mission of defending the United States and allied partners.

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.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Senior