Etched
Thermal Engineer, Rack Level
San Jose · Senior
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DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Mechanical Engineers (17-2141) · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.
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About the role
- That means defining how it is filled, commissioned, and brought online, validating the reference CDU systems it runs on, and serving as the technical voice on facility integration for our go-to-market team and customers.
- This role fits someone who has commissioned liquid cooling systems in a real datacenter and knows what goes wrong between the spec sheet and the white space.
- You will work closely with our tray- and module-level thermal engineers, with the mechanical, electrical, and systems teams, and with CDU and liquid-loop suppliers.
Responsibilities
- Own thermal design and validation of the L11 rack system, including the rack-level liquid loop, manifolds, quick disconnects, and interfaces to facility cooling..
- Develop and document deployment, fill, and commissioning processes for liquid-cooled racks, from first fill and leak checks through bring-up at customer sites.
- Validate reference CDU systems. This includes writing and executing test plans in the lab and in the field, and qualifying CDU partners on thermal performance, reliability, and controls.
- Characterize rack-level thermal and hydraulic performance (flow distribution, pressure drop, supply and return temperatures) and use the results to drive design decisions.
- Define and validate cooling-loop control strategies and how they interact with datacenter facility control systems.
- Partner with tray and module (L6-L10) thermal engineers so that server-level designs meet rack-level and facility constraints.
- Create and maintain rack thermal specifications, commissioning procedures, validation reports, and customer-facing facility requirements documents.
- Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)
Requirements
- 5-10 years of experience in thermal or mechanical engineering with direct, hands-on CDU and datacenter liquid cooling experience.
- Experience installing, commissioning, or validating liquid cooling systems at datacenter scale.
- Experience with CDU validation and commissioning, including flow, pressure, temperature, and controls testing.
- Strong working knowledge of datacenter cooling loops (facility water and technology cooling system / secondary loops) and the control systems that run them.
- A Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Thermal Engineering, or a related field.
- You may be a good fit if you have
Nice to have
- Experience deploying rack-scale direct-to-chip liquid cooling for AI or HPC systems at a hyperscaler, server OEM, or CDU vendor.
- Familiarity with industry guidelines for datacenter liquid cooling, such as OCP and ASHRAE TC 9.9.
- Experience with 1D flow network or system-level thermal/hydraulic modeling tools (e.g., Flownex, MacroFlow).
- Knowledge of coolant chemistry, filtration, leak detection, and fluid integrity testing.
Compensation
- $200,000 - $350,000 with significant equity.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage
- $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits
- Various wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more
- Compensation Range: $200,000 - $350,000 with significant equity.
Company info
- We are the first inference-focused frontier AI system, betting early on transformer and transformer-like architectures and on increasing model sizes.
- We are a fully in-person team in San Jose (Santana Row), and greatly value engineering skills.
- Support GTM and customers as the technical point of contact on facility integration questions, such as facility water requirements, CDU selection and sizing, secondary loop design, and water quality.
This listing is sourced directly from Etched's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.