Thermal Engineer, Environmental Control Systems

The Thermal Engineering teams work is essential to support our rapid innovation cycle and maintain the performance and reliability of advanced defense technologies. Thermal Engineers own the full development life cycle from conceptual design through prototyping ground and flight testing and operational deployment ensuring high-performance resilient systems that meet the demands of complex contested environments.

We are looking for a Thermal Engineer in Costa Mesa CA to own the thermal management and environmental control systems (ECS) of air vehicles and other advanced defense platforms. You will apply a deep understanding of heat transfer fluid dynamics and thermal systems to keep avionics payloads power and propulsion subsystems within their limits across the full mission envelope from hot-day ground operations to high-altitude flight.

What Youll Do

• Own the thermal design and analysis of vehicle thermal management and ECSair-cycle ram-air bleed-air and liquid cooling loopsfrom component and cold plate level up through the full vehicle.
• Use first principles to discern the right level of analysis running hand calcs spreadsheets and MATLAB/Python first-order models before detailed design.
• Define thermal management architecture and heat-sink strategyram-air and air-cycle cooling vapor-cycle systems liquid coolant loops fuel as a heat sink and thermal energy storageto keep equipment within limits as heat loads scale.
• Size and rate heat exchangers cold plates pumps fans and valves and evaluate vendor hardware against system requirements.
• Develop steady-state and transient system models of coolant fuel hydraulic and lubrication circuits in tools such as Simcenter Amesim Simscape or GT-SUITE to predict performance across ground climb cruise and off-nominal conditions.
• Work with avionics propulsion power structures and systems engineers to characterize heat loads and define thermal requirements and interfaces across operating and failure modes.
• Weigh thermal architectures against performance weight power draw reliability and cost driving trade studies that balance thermal margin with vehicle-level impact.
• Own the thermal system models correlate them to test and flight data and set red/yellow limits for test and operation.
• Lead prototype builds ground testing and validation of thermal management and ECS designs (CAD sensor and DAQ selection data post-processing results).
• Present thermal status and tradeoffs at internal and customer reviews with a clear view of timelines and technical status.
• Develop internal tools to improve analysis effectiveness and efficiency.
• Support failure reviews and root-cause analysis with test data and thermal analysis.

Required Qualifications

• 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
• Strong first-principles understanding of heat transfer and fluid dynamics including conduction convection radiation fluid flow and transient thermal behavior
• 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
• Ability to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with thermal system modeling software such as Simcenter Amesim Simscape or GT-SUITE
• Experience using MATLAB Python spreadsheets or similar tools for first-order thermal modeling transient analysis or engineering trade studies
• CAD experience with Siemens NX SolidWorks or comparable tools
• Experience with thermal management environmental control systems (ECS) air-conditioning bleed-air or ram-air systems
• Experience with analysis and modeling of hydraulic fuel coolant or lubrication circuits
• Experience with heat exchanger sizing and rating

US Salary Range

$129000 - $171000 USD

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