Thermal Systems Engineer, Integration

Ford • Long Beach, CA

15h • $100,400 - $232,700 • Hybrid

About The Position

Ford’s Electric Vehicles, Digital and Design (EVDD) team is charged with delivering the company’s vision of a fully electric transportation future. EVDD is customer-obsessed, entrepreneurial, and data-driven and is dedicated to delivering industry-leading customer experience for electric vehicle buyers and owners. You’ll join an agile team of doers pioneering our EV future by working collaboratively, staying focused on only what matters, and delivering excellence day in and day out. Join us to make positive change by helping build a better world where every person is free to move and pursue their dreams.
In this position, you will be the hands-on technical integrator for the complete thermal management system - the person who takes the architecture and requirements and makes them real across the coolant, refrigeration, and climate/HVAC subsystems. You will work day-to-day with the three subsystem owners to resolve interfaces, integrate their models, run the system-level trade studies, and turn analysis into clear recommendations that drive decisions.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related thermal/fluid sciences discipline or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.
• 5+ years of experience in thermal system design, integration, or component engineering, with hands-on exposure to more than one thermal subsystem (coolant, refrigeration, and/or climate).
• Strong understanding of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluid dynamics across both liquid-cooling and vapor-compression domains.
• Experience with physical system modeling and simulation tools (e.g., MATLAB/Simulink, GT-SUITE, etc.).
• Proficiency in Python or similar programming languages for model development.
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate across multiple engineering teams and keep several parallel workstreams moving to closure.

Nice To Haves

• Master's or Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering or related engineering discipline.
• Experience with EV thermal management systems, including integrated cabin-and-powertrain architectures and heat-pump systems.
• Familiarity with vehicle communication protocols (CAN, LIN, Automotive Ethernet).
• Experience with 3D CAD (CATIA/NX/3DX) sufficient to reason about packaging and topology at the system level.
• Strong collaborative skills to work across hardware and software teams in a fast-paced EV development environment.

Responsibilities

• Execute and deliver the integrated thermal system under the technical direction of the Thermal Engineering Manager.
• Execute and maintain the thermal system architecture, keeping the system block diagrams and interface definitions current as the design evolves.
• Work with subsystem owners to decompose vehicle and system level requirements into consistent, traceable subsystem interface requirements, and maintain traceability from vehicle targets through to each subsystem owner's component specifications.
• Integrate the individual subsystem plant models (coolant, refrigeration, climate) into a cohesive system-level model, and use it to analyze energy flows, dynamic behavior, and mode transitions across the full operating envelope.
• Perform system-level trade-off studies and present decision-ready recommendations to Thermal Engineering manager for review.
• Work day-to-day with the coolant, refrigeration, and climate subsystem owners to ensure their component specifications, selections, and models align at the interfaces and integrate cleanly into the system.
• Own the resolution of cross-subsystem hardware issues. Triage where a problem lives, coordinate with the responsible subsystem owner, and drive the fix to closure.
• Collaborate with test engineers to define and execute system-level characterization and validation, correlating the integrated model against empirical data and retiring system risk.
• Support Thermal management in design reviews, requirements reviews, and technical readouts by preparing the integrated analysis, data, and options that inform architecture and trade-off decisions.
• Interface with Design and Controls Engineers to ensure the integrated system packages correctly and that the system model meets the needs of algorithm development.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level