Panthalassa

Panthalassa

Senior Thermal Engineer

Portland, OR · Senior · Full-time

Sponsorship not specified$155k-$200kDetected 1 day ago
PythonJavaAirflowANSYSCFDThermal AnalysisMechanical DesignAerospace EngineeringElectrical EngineeringHardware DesignPower ElectronicsCommunicationCollaborationRenewable Energy

About the role

  • 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.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Develop thermal models for high-power compute and electronics payloads, including conduction, convection, liquid cooling, heat exchangers, cold plates, sealed enclosures, and thermal interfaces.
  • Support the design of cooling systems that may use ambient environmental heat sinks, liquid loops, pressure boundaries, and mechanically integrated thermal paths.
  • Identify dominant thermal resistances, failure modes, uncertainty sources, and design sensitivities using first-principles reasoning.
  • Validate simulation results against prototype tests, lab measurements, field data, and experimental observations.
  • Develop post-processing and visualization methods that clearly communicate thermal margins, flow behavior, hot spots, pressure losses, uncertainty, and design tradeoffs.

Requirements

  • Deep experience with thermal CFD for electronics, compute systems, aerospace, marine, automotive, or other high-power engineered systems.
  • Demonstrated ability to use CFD as an engineering tool rather than as a black box.
  • Experience with the full CFD workflow: geometry preparation, meshing, boundary condition definition, solver setup, convergence/debugging, post-processing, and validation.
  • Hands-on experience with one or more major CFD tools such as STAR-CCM+, ANSYS Fluent, HELYX/OpenFOAM, or comparable high-performance solvers.
  • Experience evaluating model fidelity, mesh sensitivity, turbulence models, conjugate heat transfer, transient effects, boundary condition uncertainty, and numerical error.
  • Ability to move quickly between analytical calculations, reduced-order models, and detailed CFD depending on the problem.
  • Strong communication skills and ability to work with high-bandwidth technical teams across mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics, controls, prototyping, and systems architecture.
  • Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, applied physics, or a related field
  • 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.

Nice to have

  • Experience designing and analyzing systems inside sealed enclosures, pressure vessels, marine housings, aerospace hardware, or ruggedized environmental packaging.
  • Experience with GPU-accelerated CFD, high-performance computing, or modern solver acceleration methods.
  • Experience with liquid cooling systems, cold plates, heat exchangers, pumps, manifolds, coolant loops, heat sinks, airflow management, and thermal interface materials.
  • Experience with conjugate heat transfer involving solids, fluids, interfaces, and enclosure-level thermal paths.
  • Experience with rapid prototyping, hardware bring-up, test planning, and simulation-test correlation.
  • Experience with offshore, marine, subsea, aerospace, defense, or other harsh-environment systems.
  • Scripting or automation experience in Python, shell, Java macros, OpenFOAM workflows, or solver-specific APIs.
  • The above qualifications are desired, not required.

Skills

  • About the Job

Compensation

  • Compensation and Benefits

Benefits

  • Equity in the company.
  • We're all owners and if we're successful, this equity should be far and away the most valuable component of your compensation.
  • A benefits package that helps you take care of yourself and your family, including:
  • Flexible paid time off
  • Health insurance (the company pays 100% of gold level PPO plan for full time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Dental insurance (the company pays 100% for full time employees and 100% for their partners and dependents)
  • Vision insurance (the company pays 100% for full time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Disability insurance (the company pays 100% for a policy to provide long term financial support if you become disabled)
  • Ability to contribute to tax-advantaged accounts, including 401(k), health FSA, and dependent care FSA

Company info

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • This is an onsite role based in our Portland office.
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