Nexthop AI

Nexthop AI

New Product Introduction Engineer - Thermal

Santa Clara, California

Sponsorship not specifiedDetected 11 hours ago
Product ManagementAuditingSupply ChainMechanical DesignHardware DesignResearchLeadership

About the role

  • At Nexthop AI, our thermal solutions are as complex as the silicon they cool.
  • We are looking for a Hardware Product Engineer to act as the ultimate technical authority for our Direct-to-Chip (D2C) and rack-level cooling systems.

Responsibilities

  • Critical Vendor Portfolio: Drive our thermal solutions vendor portfolio by auditing, assessing, qualifying, and ramping each vendor and their commodity.
  • Use technical expertise to know when a second source is critical and drive the qualification of that second source.
  • Equipment Buyoff (FAT/SAT): Lead Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) and Site Acceptance Testing (SAT). You own the "Buyoff" process, ensuring equipment meets precision, repeatability, and safety standards.
  • Thermal Validation Lead: Identify and establish the "North Star" metrics for D2C and rack-level integration. Define what we measure, how it's captured at the factory, and why it ensures long-term survival.
  • NPI Milestone Leadership: Lead technical reviews for EVT/DVT/PVT milestones, ensuring all thermal exit criteria are met and documented.
  • Manufacturing and Quality Integration: Design thermal test vehicles, assembly fixtures, Thermal Interface Material (TIM) application processes and equipment, ensuring our contract manufacturers have the right equipment to gather the data you require.
  • D2C Interface Ownership: Lead the technical deployment of Direct-to-Chip cooling. You own the mechanical interface between the ASIC and the cold plate, ensuring the "physics of the contact" is repeatable across multiple PCBA projects.
  • TIM Strategy: Define and validate Thermal Interface Material (TIM) application and compression standards to prevent pump-out and ensure decade-long thermal stability.

Requirements

  • Equipment Expertise: Proven experience in determining, qualifying, and buying off high-precision manufacturing equipment for liquid-cooled or high-power electronics.

Skills

  • Reliability & Qualification Standards
  • Technical Authority: Experience holding "Ship/No-Ship" authority in a high-stakes hardware environment.
  • Education: BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering, Thermal Science, or a related field.
  • What Success Looks Like

This listing is sourced directly from Nexthop AI's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.