Thermal Engineer - Analysis & Test

The role

This role supports thermal design and environmental verification of spacecraft. The work involves thermal analysis and direct ownership of thermal test development and execution.

What you will do

• Develop and maintain thermal models for components, assemblies, and spacecraft-level systems.
• Perform steady-state and transient thermal analyses.
• Collaborate with mechanical designers on thermal interfaces and materials.
• Perform thermal design trades and communicate results to cross-functional teams.
• Correlate thermal models with test results.
• Develop and lead TVAC, thermal-chamber, thermal-cycling, and R&D thermal test campaigns.
• Define test objectives, instrumentation plans, and data requirements.
• Write test plans, procedures, and verification documentation.
• Prepare and configure test hardware including sensors, heaters, and data-acquisition equipment.
• Execute tests, monitor data, and troubleshoot anomalies.

Required qualifications

• BS or MS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• Early-career to mid-career experience in thermal engineering, thermal analysis, environmental testing, or a closely related hardware discipline.
• Strong understanding of heat transfer, including conduction, convection, radiation, transient thermal behavior, thermal interfaces, and material properties.
• Experience creating, reviewing, or using thermal models for hardware, components, or integrated systems.
• Experience supporting hands-on hardware testing in a lab, environmental-test, aerospace, or similarly rigorous hardware environment.
• Ability to develop clear engineering documentation, including test procedures, analysis summaries, reports, and presentations.
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and comfort working directly with hardware.
• Ability to independently drive technical work, solve ambiguous problems, and collaborate effectively across disciplines.

Nice to have

• Experience with spacecraft thermal-analysis tools such as Thermal Desktop/SINDA, ESATAN, or equivalent.
• Direct experience supporting or leading TVAC, thermal-vacuum, thermal cycling, or thermal-chamber tests.
• Experience with thermocouples, RTDs, heaters, data-acquisition systems, vacuum-compatible hardware, and test instrumentation.
• Experience correlating thermal models with environmental-test data.
• Familiarity with spacecraft environmental-test standards and practices, such as GEVS, MIL-STD-1540, ECSS, or SMC-S-016.
• Experience using Python, MATLAB, or similar tools for test-data reduction, analysis, or automation.
• Experience working in a fast-paced aerospace, space, robotics, research, or high-reliability hardware environment.
• Experience developing, troubleshooting, automating, or modifying thermal or TVAC chamber capabilities.

Before you apply

• For U.S. Roles: applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the United States (i.e. Green Card holder), or other protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).
• For U.K. Roles: requires Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks, and successful candidates must be eligible to obtain UK Security Clearance (SC).
• For Canada Roles: Successful candidates must obtain and hold a security clearance at the reliability status level, and pass security assessment for the Canadian Controlled Goods Program (CGP) and ITAR

About the company

Xona is the navigational intelligence company bringing real-time, centimeter-level certainty to any device, anywhere on Earth. With Pulsar, Xona will offer a future-proof, backwards-compatible global positioning system optimized for absolute precision, superior power, and robust protection.