Senior Engineer, Avionics Thermal Engineering (R5298)

Job Description:

Are you a passionate and innovative thermal engineer looking to help develop state of the art AI and aircraft products? Are you eager to make a positive difference in the world? Do you want to work alongside mission driven and values focused teammates? Shield AI is just the place for you!

As a Senior Thermal Engineer at Shield AI, you will own the design, analysis, and integration of aircraft avionics thermal management systems and electronics cooling.

This role is best suited for an engineer who thrives on first-principles problem solving, is comfortable with ambiguous, open-ended challenges, and can communicate well across functions, ensuring well coordinated thermal management solutions.

What you'll do:

• Own thermal solutions for unmanned aerial vehicle avionics including design, analysis, and test.
• Develop and validate analytical, numerical, and computational models for heat transfer and fluid flow using hand calculations and CFD tools such as FloEFD.
• Provide technical leadership in trade studies, system architecture decisions, and risk assessments.
• Drive test planning, instrumentation, and data analysis to correlate models with experimental results.
• Guide cross-disciplinary teams in applying thermal/fluid fundamentals.
• Communicate technical findings clearly through design reviews, and written reports.
• Proactively identify risks, propose solutions, and influence electrical and/or PCBA design direction.

Required qualifications:

• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related discipline.
• Minimum 4 years of professional experience in avionics or electronics thermal engineering.
• Strong expertise in heat transfer (conduction, convection, radiation) and fluid mechanics.
• Strong understanding of active and passive cooling solutions and their integration at component and system level.
• Understanding of thermal management design elements including TIMs, spreaders, heat sinks, vapor chambers, heat pipes, and fans
• Proficiency with thermal analysis and CFD tools (e.g., ANSYS Icepak, FloEFD, STAR-CCM+).
• Experience with CAD design tools such as NX, SolidWorks, or similar.
• Demonstrated experience applying first-principles reasoning to complex engineering problems.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to learn and adapt quickly to new tools, processes, and technical challenges in a fast paced, startup environment.

Preferred qualifications:

• M.S. in a relevant engineering discipline.
• Experience with high altitude aircraft avionics cooling and thermal design.
• Familiarity with aircraft integration constraints (power, weight, volume, maintainability, safety).
• Hands-on experience with thermal and fluid system testing, instrumentation, and validation.
• Knowledge of materials and manufacturing methods relevant to thermal management