Staff Engineer, Aircraft Thermal Systems - Ranger (R6351)

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn , X , Instagram , and YouTube .

Job Description:

As a Staff (L4) Aircraft Thermal Systems Engineer, you will take full technical ownership of thermal analysis, design, and vehicle integration for a Group 5 UAV fighter aircraft. You will work from first principles to characterize aircraft-level thermal environments, evaluate heat-transfer pathways, develop cooling solutions, correlate analytical and computational models, and deliver robust thermal systems and hardware in a rapid-iteration development environment. This position requires a balance of technical rigor, rapid decision-making, and hands-on engineering to efficiently transition concepts into operational capability. The ideal candidate is comfortable solving complex problems, taking ownership, working within an accelerated aircraft development environment, and is motivated by getting meaningful capability into the hands of operators quickly.

What you'll do:

Thermal System Ownership: Define and mature aircraft-level thermal environments and thermal management solutions for vehicle bays, hot surfaces, and other thermal-critical installations.

Thermal Analysis and Modeling: Perform first-principles heat transfer and fluid mechanics calculations, then develop analytical, finite-difference, and CFD models to characteri