Thermal-Fluids Analyst

Location: Torrance, California, in the Los Angeles area; work is centered at the company's facility. Applicants must satisfy U.S. government export-control requirements: U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, asylee, or eligible to obtain the required authorization.

Salary: $90,000–$150,000 per year, plus equity. Engineer I: $90,000–$115,000; Engineer II: $112,000–$150,000.

Company

hirify.global is a Series C startup developing mass-producible, inherently safe nuclear microreactors for terrestrial, underwater, and space applications.

What you will do

• Build and run thermal-fluids and CFD models for reactor-core and power-conversion components and subsystems.
• Assess pressure drop, heat transfer, and other performance characteristics using hand calculations, internal tools, and CFD.
• Provide design feedback on sizing, material selection, manufacturability, and optimization.
• Support test campaigns through test planning, instrumentation selection, root-cause analysis, data review, and model validation.
• Develop internal engineering tools and calculators for rapid analytical assessments.
• Mentor engineers and communicate analytical results, assumptions, and limitations to stakeholders and customers.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a similar technical discipline.
• Experience building and running CFD models with commercial tools such as Fluent, CFX, or Star-CCM+, including conjugate heat transfer and compressible equations of state.
• Experience with CAD software, such as Siemens NX, for design modification and model defeaturing.
• Experience with Python, MATLAB, VBA, or another scripting language for engineering tools and calculators.
• Ability to work long hours and weekends when necessary to support critical milestones.
• U.S. export-control eligibility is required.

Nice to have

• Master's degree and 3+ years of thermal-fluids analysis experience.
• Experience with one-dimensional fluid-network tools such as Flownex, Sinda-Fluint, or RELAP5.
• Experience with safety-critical aerospace or nuclear qualification programs, multiphase fluid and heat-transport systems, numerical methods, ASME BPVC Section III Division 5, or FEA.
• Experience working in fast-paced environments with rapid design iteration cycles.

Culture & Benefits

• Equity and a significant stock option package.
• Close collaboration between design, analysis, and testing teams.
• Values include systems thinking, end-user focus, challenging convention, meeting stakeholders where the work happens, and operating in ambiguity.
• In-person collaboration is emphasized while recognizing that deep work can be done remotely.