d-Matrix
Sr. Staff Thermal Design Engineer
$175K–$265K
Santa Clara · Hybrid · Senior Staff · Full-time · Posted Oct 21, 2026
- Experience
- 7+ years.
- Education
- Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Thermal Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline.
About the job
Leads thermal design, simulation, and validation of AI computing platforms, from silicon and server systems to high-power liquid-cooled racks.
What you'll do
- Design and develop liquid- and air-cooling hardware, including cold plates, manifolds, CDUs, heat sinks, fans, and tubing networks.
- Model fluid flow and thermal performance; balance flow and minimize pressure drop across rack systems.
- Set up instrumentation and conduct thermal-fluid performance and stress testing of cooling hardware, servers, and racks.
What they ask for
- Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Thermal Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline.
- 7+ years of hands-on experience in thermal design, CFD modeling, and physical testing of air-cooled and liquid-cooled electronic systems.
- Expertise designing, selecting, and qualifying cold plates, rack manifolds, fluid tubing, UQDs, and CDUs; strong understanding of flow networks and hydraulic balancing.
- Experience with CFD tools such as Simcenter Flotherm, Flotherm XT, Ansys Icepak, or Ansys Fluent; hands-on performance characterization and stress testing of liquid-cooled hardware.
Nice to have
- Experience with 1D hydraulic network simulation tools such as Flownex or Flowmaster.
- Proficiency with 3D mechanical CAD tools such as PTC Creo, SolidWorks, or Siemens NX; familiarity with OCP liquid cooling standards is also preferred.
Pay
$175K – $265K USD base salary
Tools
Simcenter Flotherm, Flotherm XT, Ansys Icepak, Ansys Fluent, Flownex, Flowmaster, PTC Creo, SolidWorks
AI focus
Thermal design and cooling for AI XPU computing platforms, servers, and rack-scale systems.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative