Thermal-Mechanical Engineer II (Nuclear Power)

Location: Onsite in Torrance, California, United States

Salary: $115,000–$150,000 per year, plus stock options

Company

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

What you will do

• Own the Power Conversion System thermal management strategy, thermal energy budget, cold-sink margin, and parasitic-loss impact on cycle performance.
• Develop heat-rejection and cold-sink architectures, including recuperator sizing and integration against site and ambient conditions.
• Define insulation, heat-loss budgets, surface temperatures, instrumentation, and personnel-protection requirements for the hot section.
• Manage thermal interfaces and transient requirements across PCS components, the reactor, and safety systems.
• Support test-rig design, instrumentation placement, data reviews, model correlation, and design updates based on test results.
• Develop inspection and maintenance plans for temperature- and thermal-mechanically life-limited hardware while collaborating with Mechanical, Electrical, Safety, Nuclear, Materials, and Structural teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, Nuclear, or a related engineering discipline.
• At least 2 years of full-cycle engineering experience for Engineer II.
• Experience with thermal analysis using hand calculations, FEA, or CFD to size, configure, or qualify hardware.
• Experience designing high-temperature thermal-management hardware, sizing or integrating heat exchangers, and evaluating heat rejection under real operating and ambient conditions.
• Experience correlating thermal predictions with test data and managing thermal interfaces or requirements across multiple subsystems.
• Due to U.S. Government export regulations, applicants must be U.S. citizens or nationals, lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees, or eligible to obtain the required authorizations.

Nice to have

• Experience in nuclear, aerospace, automotive, power generation, motorsports, or oil and gas industries.
• Experience with recuperators, dry heat rejection, transient thermal analysis, thermal-mechanical fatigue, creep, and life assessment.
• Knowledge of ASME BPVC Section III Division 5 or Section VIII Division 2 Part 5 and high-temperature metals such as nickel superalloys.
• Experience with thermal instrumentation, NDE-based inspection planning, ANSYS Mechanical, Femap, NX Thermal, Fluent, or Star-CCM+.
• Experience commissioning first-of-a-kind hardware in a demanding development environment.

Culture & Benefits

• Work in a new 322,000-square-foot facility supporting collaboration, R&D, and production.
• Teams prioritize in-person collaboration while recognizing that deep work can be done remotely.
• Values include systems thinking, end-user focus, challenging convention, direct stakeholder engagement, and operating in ambiguity.
• Ability to work long hours and weekends when necessary to support critical milestones.
• Compensation includes a significant stock option package in addition to salary.