Thermal Engineer, Environmental Control Systems
Anduril · Costa Mesa, United States · 7h ago
Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.
About the Team
The Thermal Engineering team's 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.
About the Role
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 You'll Do
- Own the thermal design and analysis of vehicle thermal management and ECS—air-cycle, ram-air, bleed-air, and liquid cooling loops—from 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 strategy—ram-air and air-cycle cooling, vapor-cycle systems, liquid coolant loops, fuel as a heat sink, and thermal energy storage—to 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
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:
Benefits
At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.
Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams
Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.
To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:
-
No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.
- Please always verify communications:
- Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an
@anduril.comaddress. - Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to contact@anduril.com.
- Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an
-
Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach: If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.
-
What to Do If You Suspect Fraud: Should you encounter any questionable or fraudulent outreach claiming to be from Anduril, please report it immediately to contact@anduril.com. Your proactive caution is invaluable in protecting your personal information and upholding the security and trustworthiness of our recruitment efforts.
Data Privacy
To view Anduril's candidate data privacy policy, please visit https://anduril.com/applicant-privacy-notice/.
By submitting your application, you consent to Anduril Industries using a third-party service provider to conduct pre-employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening and assessing potential risks as part of your application process. This third-party service provider provides risk-intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public-record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third-party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Use of this provider helps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and protect technology, intellectual property, and organizational security.