Staff Engineer, Thermal - Air Vehicle (r4856)

Shield AI Shield AI · Defense · Dallas, TX +1 · X-BAT Engineering - Mechanical

Staff Aircraft Thermal Engineer responsible for thermal analysis, characterization, modeling, and design of unmanned aerial vehicles, specifically focusing on hot exhaust gas management and aircraft-level thermal environments. The role involves architecting analytical and numerical models, conducting trade studies, defining test plans, and mentoring cross-disciplinary teams.

What you'd actually do

  1. Execute thermal analysis and characterization efforts for unmanned aerial vehicle aircraft-level thermal systems.
  2. Architect and validate analytical, numerical, and computational models for heat transfer and fluid flow using hand calculations, finite difference methods, and CFD tools such as FloEFD.
  3. Execute trade studies, make system architecture decisions, own requirements generation, and make technical risk assessments.
  4. Define and oversee test planning, instrumentation, and data analysis to correlate models with experimental results.
  5. Mentor and guide cross-disciplinary teams in applying thermal/fluid fundamentals.

Skills

Required

  • thermal analysis
  • heat transfer
  • fluid flow
  • CFD tools
  • FloEFD
  • hand calculations
  • finite difference methods
  • system architecture
  • requirements generation
  • technical risk assessment
  • test planning
  • data analysis
  • model correlation
  • experimental results

Nice to have

  • VTOL strike aircraft development
  • first-principles problem solving
  • autonomous problem solving
  • bridging technical disciplines
  • clear communication
  • shaping designs
  • guiding engineering peers
  • robust thermal solutions
  • mission-critical aerospace requirements