Cowboy Space
Mechanical Engineer - Active Cooling
$100K–$300K
Kent, Washington · On-site · Full-time · Posted Sep 2, 2026
- Experience
- 3+ years designing or analyzing fluid systems and/or mechanical hardware in aerospace, automotive, energy, data-center cooling, or other high-performance environments.
- Education
- BS or MS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
- Visa sponsorship
- Applicants must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.
About the job
Owns the design, integration, testing, and qualification of a spacecraft liquid cooling system for on-orbit GPU compute hardware.
What you'll do
- Design and size the liquid cooling loop and its components, and integrate its mechanical packaging with the spacecraft and thermal control system.
- Analyze fluid, pressure-drop, and thermal behavior; build and operate testbeds; and execute qualification and acceptance testing.
- Maintain engineering documentation, resolve system anomalies, and coordinate integration with cross-functional teams and suppliers.
What they ask for
- BS or MS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
- Strong fluids fundamentals, including flow, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and pressure systems; hands-on experience with fluid components.
- Experience taking hardware from concept through build and test, including hands-on integration and test.
- Strong mechanical design fundamentals and proficiency with CAD (e.g., NX, SolidWorks, or similar).
Nice to have
- Experience designing pumped liquid cooling loops, two-phase cooling, or cold-plate/coolant systems for high heat-flux electronics or GPU/compute hardware.
- Space-environment design experience or experience with FEA, thermal, and fluid simulation tools.
Pay
USD $100,000 – $300,000 annually (base salary)
Tools
NX, SolidWorks, FEA, MIL-SPEC, NASA-STD, ECSS
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative