Thermal Engineer, Rack Level - San Jose
$200,000 - $350,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 20 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
As a Thermal Engineer, Rack Level, you will own the thermal design and validation of the L11 rack system, taking liquid-cooled inference racks from initial design through customer datacenter deployment.
What you'll do
- Own thermal design and validation of the L11 rack system, including the rack-level liquid loop, manifolds, quick disconnects, and interfaces to facility cooling. - Develop and document deployment, fill, and commissioning processes for liquid-cooled racks, covering first fill, leak checks, and customer site bring-up. - Validate reference CDU systems by writing and executing test plans in the lab and field, qualifying partners on thermal performance, reliability, and controls. - Characterize rack-level thermal and hydraulic performance, including flow distribution, pressure drop, and supply and return temperatures. - Define and validate cooling-loop control strategies and their interactions with datacenter facility control systems. - Partner with tray and module (L6–L10) thermal engineers to align server-level designs with rack-level and facility constraints.
What you'll need
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Thermal Engineering, or a related field. - 5–10 years of experience in thermal or mechanical engineering with hands-on CDU and datacenter liquid cooling experience. - Experience installing, commissioning, or validating liquid cooling systems at datacenter scale. - Experience with CDU validation and commissioning, including flow, pressure, temperature, and controls testing. - Working knowledge of datacenter cooling loops (facility water and technology cooling system / secondary loops) and control systems. - Experience working with customers, facility teams, and suppliers to resolve integration issues.
Nice to have
- Experience deploying rack-scale direct-to-chip liquid cooling for AI or HPC systems at a hyperscaler, server OEM, or CDU vendor. - Familiarity with industry guidelines for datacenter liquid cooling, such as OCP and ASHRAE TC 9.9. - Experience with 1D flow network or system-level thermal/hydraulic modeling tools (e.g., Flownex, MacroFlow). - Knowledge of coolant chemistry, filtration, leak detection, and fluid integrity testing.
This role has been open 2 days — well below the 51-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
1003
|
Median days open
51 d
|
Median salary
$155k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Etched | All employers we track in this specialty (1003 roles · 104 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 9 | 1003 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 42 | 6291 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 132 d | 51 d (+81 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $155k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Intel Corporation · 72 open roles · median 34 d
- KLA Corporation · 63 open roles · median 48 d
- Teradyne · 61 open roles · median 34 d
- NVIDIA · 53 open roles · median 72 d
- Applied Materials · 51 open roles · median 70 d
- AMD · 46 open roles · median 52 d
How we counted: 1003 open Hardware Systems Engineering (AI ML Hardware) roles from 104 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 22 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.