Section
About the Role
Location: Costa Mesa, CA; onsite
Interview process: Two Interviews, 1 focused on Mechanical Engineering principals, one focused on thermal principals. Both virtual.
Headcount: 1
Employment type: Contract, c2hire possible
Why hiring:
- Address issues with ECU units from multiple manufacturers, improve existing designs, and establish in-house ECU design capability.
- Own environmental control systems from concept through real-world use in the hands of warfighters.
- Define the technical roadmap for what ECUs will look like five years from now.
End product:
- Environmental control systems for TITAN and Menace I shelters, command posts, operations centers, and living spaces.
Tech / domain environment:
- Environmental control units, HVAC, vapor-compression systems, psychrometrics, CFD, and thermal analysis.
- Siemens NX, SolidWorks experience accepted
- Mechanical Engineering for Thermal/HVAC/ECU Systems. Thermal Analysis, though primary job duty will be in Mechanical Engineering.
- Ruggedized enclosures designed for blowing sand, salt air, shock and vibration, and air/land/sea transport.
Job duties:
- Work with HVAC/ECU suppliers to specify, evaluate, and refine hardware; drive requirements, design reviews, and component and integration trade-offs.
- Establish the technical foundation and roadmap for bringing HVAC/ECU design in-house over time.
- Size systems for high-ambient cooling, sub-zero heating, and high-latent-load conditions using thermodynamics, heat transfer, and psychrometrics from first principles.
- Use CFD and thermal analysis to optimize airflow, coil performance, condensation management, and packaging in tightly constrained, ruggedized enclosures.
- Apply first-principles analysis and testing to design for blowing sand, salt air, shock and vibration, and air/land/sea transport.
- Build and test prototypes and first articles hands-on.
- Iterate designs and work with suppliers and manufacturing to deliver at volume.
- Own environmental control systems across the full lifecycle, from first-principles analysis to hardware in the field.
Must haves:
- 7+ years of professional mechanical engineering experience focused on HVAC, refrigeration, or environmental control unit design.
- Vapor-compression system design experience, including selection, sizing, and integration of compressors, heat exchangers and coils, refrigerant circuits, and air-moving equipment.
- Strong grounding in thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluid dynamics, with high competence and fluid use of engineering first principles.
- Experience working with suppliers or vendors on hardware design and build.
- CAD skills on any platform and ability to produce high-quality engineering drawings.
- BS, M.Eng, MS, or PhD in Mechanical Engineering or a related field.
- U.S. Person status due to required access to U.S. export-controlled information or facilities.
- Work onsite at the Costa Mesa, CA headquarters.
- System-level mechanical design experience, including component selection, enclosure design, and mechanical integration of internal parts.
Nice to haves:
- Experience designing ruggedized, deployable, or mobile HVAC/ECU systems for extreme or military environments.
- Experience with VapCyc and CoilDesigner software.
- Hands-on CFD experience using ANSYS Fluent, CFX, or equivalent for airflow and thermal optimization.
- Knowledge of static, dynamic, or thermal analysis methods and their use in ANSYS.
- Experience with refrigerant selection and compliance, including low-GWP refrigerants and evolving regulations.
- Familiarity with HVAC and refrigeration standards and test methods, including AHRI and ASHRAE.
- Experience transitioning a product from a supplier or contract manufacturer to in-house design and production.
- Experience with Siemens NX and Teamcenter.