About the Company

We are a renewable energy and ocean technology company committed to rapidly developing and deploying technologies that will ensure a sustainable future for Earth by unlocking the vast energy potential of its oceans. Our focus is on capturing civilizational levels of ultra-low-cost renewable energy for applications including computing and affordable renewable fuels delivered to shore.

The company is a public benefit corporation headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and backed by leading venture capitalists, philanthropic investors, university endowments, and private investment offices. We operate as an idea meritocracy in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis.

Our staff have worked at organizations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Tesla, Apple, Virgin Orbit, Astra, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, New Relic, Bridgewater, Raytheon, Disney Imagineering, and the US Army and Air Force, as well as research universities, startups, and small companies across a range of industries.

About the Job

We are looking for a Senior Thermal Engineer who will own the end-to-end thermal simulation workflow for low- and high-power electromechanical systems operating in harsh marine environments, with a strong emphasis on rapid design iteration, first-principles thinking, and high-fidelity CFD where it adds real value.

You will work closely with mechanical engineers, payload architects, electrical engineers, applied physicists, and the prototype team to evaluate concepts, improve designs, define thermal requirements, debug issues, and help move hardware from early architecture through prototype and field validation. The ideal candidate is an expert in thermal CFD and modern simulation workflows, including GPU-accelerated solvers or other methods that enable fast turnaround without sacrificing engineering accuracy.

Candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis. You will own your designs cradle-to-grave, from first concept through fabrication and deployment at sea. If you are an excellent engineer, regardless of your background, we want you to apply.

This is an on-site role based in our Portland office.

Responsibilities

Own thermal simulation and analysis workflows for onboard payloads, electronics, cooling systems, pressure-contained assemblies, and related mechanical systems.
Build and execute fast, reliable thermal CFD workflows that support rapid design iteration in close collaboration with mechanical design, electrical engineering, payload architecture, and prototyping teams.
Translate component-level thermal inputs, power maps, packaging constraints, and environmental conditions into actionable system and subsystem thermal requirements.
Analyze unit- and payload-level thermal architectures to define required airflow, liquid flow rates, heat sink performance, cold plate requirements, thermal interface assumptions, allowable pressure drops, and related cooling design parameters.
Work with electrical and mechanical engineers to define cooling interfaces and design targets that can be directly incorporated into board layouts, enclosure designs, heat sinks, manifolds, ducts, cold plates, and other hardware.
Evaluate and select appropriate modeling approaches, ranging from hand calculations and reduced-order models to detailed CFD, depending on the design question and required fidelity.
Assess GPU-accelerated and high-performance simulation tools for thermal analysis, including commercial and open-source options such as Fluent, STAR-CCM+, HELYX/OpenFOAM-based workflows, and emerging solver technologies.
Own the full simulation lifecycle, including geometry preparation, CAD interaction, meshing, solver setup, execution, debugging, convergence assessment, post-processing, visualization, and communication of results.
Work directly with CAD and design teams, including NX-based workflows, to simplify, prepare, and modify geometry for simulation and rapid design exploration.