Thermal Manufacturing Engineer

The role

This person will own the development, qualification, and scaling of thermal management manufacturing processes for silicon-to-system products. The role focuses on liquid cooling systems, primarily cold plates, from prototype to high-volume production.

What you will do

• Own end-to-end manufacturing engineering for thermal components and assemblies from NPI through mass production.
• Develop, qualify, and optimize cold plate fabrication processes.
• Define process parameters, controls, and acceptance criteria.
• Partner with thermal and mechanical design teams to drive DFx.
• Lead process qualification and first-article inspection at CM/supplier sites.
• Drive root cause analysis and corrective action for manufacturing defects.
• Evaluate and qualify new suppliers and manufacturing technologies.
• Define and monitor key manufacturing KPIs.
• Collaborate with Manufacturing Test to integrate testing into production lines.
• Support failure analysis and closed-loop feedback between factory, design, and reliability teams.

Required qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in manufacturing engineering, process engineering, or thermal systems manufacturing.
• Direct hands-on experience producing liquid cold plates or heat exchangers.
• Expertise in two or more cold plate fabrication processes: skiving, vacuum brazing, friction stir welding, diffusion bonding, gun drilling, or extrusion-based channel formation.
• Strong understanding of aluminum and copper alloy properties, braze alloy selection, and metallurgical failure modes.
• Experience qualifying cold plate manufacturers and running process capability studies.
• Hands-on experience with cold plate inspection and test methods: helium leak testing, hydrostatic pressure testing, flow/pressure-drop characterization, flatness measurement.
• Experience with DFM/DFY reviews for cold plate and liquid cooling system designs.
• Track record of driving root cause analysis and corrective action for cold plate manufacturing defects.
• Experience working directly with contract manufacturers and thermal component suppliers.
• Familiarity with system-level liquid cooling architectures.
• Strong technical documentation skills: PFMEA, control plans, work instructions, first-article inspection reports.
• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related field.

Nice to have

• Prior experience in server, HPC, datacenter, or power electronics thermal management

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage
• $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits
• Housing subsidy of $2,500 per month for those living within walking distance of the office
• Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)
• Various wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more
• Daily lunch and dinner in our office
• Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification

About the company

Etched is building hardware for frontier intelligence by co-designing chips, racks, software, and manufacturing. They are a fully in-person team in San Jose (Santana Row).