Sr. Staff Thermal Design Engineer

The role

You will lead the end-to-end thermal design, architecture, and validation of next-generation AI XPU computing platforms. This includes silicon-level thermal management, server-level chassis engineering, and 100kW+ liquid-cooled rack deployments.

What you will do

• Lead thermal-fluid design and development of liquid cooling hardware.
• Define and select liquid cooling infrastructure including internal and external CDUs.
• Perform fluid dynamics and flow network analysis.
• Evaluate fluid compatibility, materials, corrosion inhibitors, and long-term reliability.
• Design and optimize air-cooled thermal solutions.
• Build 3D CFD models and 1D hydraulic network simulations.
• Architect thermal/fluid lab setups and instrument test vehicles.
• Execute performance testing of cold plates, manifolds, CDUs, and server/rack systems.
• Partner with Mechanical, Electrical, Packaging, and Reliability teams.

Required qualifications

• 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.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing, selecting, and qualifying cold plates, rack manifolds, fluid tubing, UQDs, and CDUs.
• Deep understanding of flow networks, pressure drop calculations, hydraulic balancing, and fluid distribution across multi-socket, multi-tray server racks.
• Knowledge in air-cooled thermal management, including fan selection, heat sink design, and system impedance testing.
• Experience with CFD tools such as Simcenter Flotherm, Flotherm XT, Ansys Icepak, or Ansys Fluent.
• Knowledge of lab instrumentation, including multi-channel DAQs, thermal test vehicles, flow benches, pressure calibration, and helium/pressure leak testing.
• Proven experience performing 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 (e.g., PTC Creo, SolidWorks, Siemens NX).
• Familiarity with Open Compute Project (OCP) liquid cooling standards and industry reliability metrics.
• Knowledge of thermal interface materials (TIM1, TIM1.5, phase-change materials) and advanced packaging thermal constraints.

About the company

d-Matrix has pioneered a memory-centric architecture that brings compute directly into memory. The team works on chips, software, and rack-scale systems to tackle AI infrastructure challenges.