Staff Engineer, Thermal Engineering

Location: Dallas, Texas, United States; on-site

Company

hirify.global develops AI and aircraft products, including the V-BAT autonomous aircraft platform.

What you will do

• Own avionics thermal management across the V-BAT lifecycle, from concept and architecture through qualification and production.
• Define thermal requirements, environments, interfaces, modeling standards, assumptions, and margin policies for avionics bays, enclosures, and components.
• Develop and review heat transfer and fluid flow models using first-principles calculations and CFD tools such as FloEFD.
• Lead thermal trade studies, system architecture decisions, risk assessments, and design reviews while balancing performance, power, weight, volume, cost, maintainability, and schedule.
• Define qualification and verification strategies, lead instrumentation and data analysis, and correlate models with test results.
• Guide electrical, PCBA, mechanical, systems, and supplier decisions; mentor engineers and drive program-level thermal risks to closure.

Requirements

• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline.
• At least 8 years of professional experience in avionics or electronics thermal engineering, including ownership of solutions through qualification and production.
• Expert knowledge of conduction, convection, radiation, fluid mechanics, and first-principles validation of complex models.
• Experience with active and passive cooling solutions, including TIMs, spreaders, heat sinks, cold plates, vapor chambers, heat pipes, and fans.
• Advanced proficiency with thermal analysis and CFD tools such as ANSYS Icepak, FloEFD, or STAR-CCM+, plus CAD tools such as NX or SolidWorks and PLM-controlled design release.
• Experience planning thermal qualification and verification testing, leading technical reviews, communicating findings, mentoring engineers, and working independently in a fast-paced startup environment.

Nice to have

• M.S. in a relevant engineering discipline.
• Experience with high-altitude aircraft avionics cooling, aircraft integration constraints, and aerospace standards including MIL-STD-810, RTCA DO-160, and MIL-HDBK-516.
• Knowledge of transient and duty-cycle analysis, system-level thermal budgets, thermal materials and manufacturing methods, and supplier technical oversight.

Culture & Benefits

• Mission-driven work focused on AI and aircraft products.
• Cross-disciplinary collaboration across mechanical, electrical, PCBA, systems, program, and supplier teams.
• Full-time employee position in an on-site engineering environment.