Staff Engineer, Aircraft Thermal Systems (RX) (R6002)

Location: On-site in Dallas, Texas, United States. US citizens only with an active Secret or higher security clearance required.

Salary: $146,480–$219,720 per year, plus potential bonus, benefits, and equity for regular employees.

Company

hirify.global is a venture-backed defense-tech company developing intelligent systems, autonomy software, unmanned aircraft, and simulation technologies.

What you will do

• Own aircraft-level thermal environments and thermal management solutions for a Group 5 UAV fighter.
• Perform first-principles heat-transfer and fluid-mechanics calculations and develop analytical, finite-difference, CFD, and thermal-analysis models.
• Design active and passive cooling systems, heat-rejection paths, airflow solutions, ducting, thermal interfaces, and related hardware.
• Develop thermal requirements, risk assessments, CAD layouts, and interfaces with structures, avionics, fluid systems, EWIS, and other mechanical systems.
• Plan and support qualification, verification, instrumentation, data acquisition, and model-correlation testing.
• Specify, evaluate, and manage thermal hardware suppliers through prototype build, testing, qualification, and production readiness.

Requirements

• US citizenship and an active Secret or higher clearance are required.
• 7–12 years of direct aerospace thermal engineering, environmental control systems, or vehicle thermal and fluid systems experience.
• B.S. or M.S. in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Deep knowledge of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluid dynamics applied to aircraft or defense systems.
• Experience with hand calculations, finite-difference methods, CFD or thermal-analysis tools, and 3D CAD/PLM workflows.
• Experience designing cooling systems, sourcing aerospace components, managing suppliers, and building test setups under tight timelines.

Nice to have

• Experience with high-altitude aircraft thermal management.
• Hands-on thermal and fluid-system testing, instrumentation, data acquisition, and validation experience.
• Knowledge of aerospace materials, manufacturing methods, systems integration, and airworthiness standards including MIL-STD-810, MIL-HDBK-310, RTCA DO-160, and SAE AIR or ARP standards.

Culture & Benefits

• Rapid-iteration development environment focused on transitioning concepts into operational defense capability.
• Regular employees receive benefits, potential bonus, and equity.
• Work is performed on-site in Dallas within the X-BAT Engineering mechanical organization.
• Employment offers are contingent on a cleared background and may include a reference check.