Thermal Engineer

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. 

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 Staff  Thermal Engineer at Shield AI, you will be the technical authority for aircraft avionics thermal management and electronics cooling. You will define thermal architecture, set analysis and test standards, and carry avionics thermal solutions from concept through qualification and production.

This role is best suited for an engineer who solves problems from first principles, turns ambiguous, open-ended challenges into clear technical plans, and influences design decisions across mechanical, electrical, PCBA, and systems teams. You will mentor other engineers and raise the thermal capability of the organization.

What you'll do:

• Serve as technical owner and authority for avionics thermal management across V-BAT, from concept through design, analysis, qualification, and production.
• Define avionics thermal architecture, derive thermal requirements, and establish thermal environments and interface requirements for avionics bays, enclosures, and components.
• Develop, review, and approve analytical, numerical, and computational heat transfer and fluid flow models using hand calculations and CFD tools such as FloEFD. Set modeling standards, assumptions, and margin policies for the team.
• Lead trade studies, system architecture decisions, and risk assessments. Balance thermal performance against power, weight, volume, cost, maintainability, and schedule.
• Define qualification and verification strategy. Lead test planning, instrumentation, and data analysis, and correlate models with test data. Support environmental qualification to standards such as MIL-STD-810 and RTCA DO-160.