Thermal Engineer - Fully Remote

About the job

Mercor connects elite creative and technical talent with leading AI research labs. Headquartered in San Francisco, our investors include Benchmark
, General Catalyst
, Peter Thiel
, Adam D'Angelo
, Larry Summers
, and Jack Dorsey
.

Position: Mechanical Engineering Experts
Type:
Contract
Compensation: $100–$120/hour
Location:
Remote

Role Responsibilities

• Apply hands-on mechanical engineering expertise to complex tasks involving real physical systems and products.
• Review and evaluate mechanical designs, engineering analyses, simulation results, and troubleshooting approaches.
• Analyse engineering trade-offs involving structures
  , materials
  , thermal performance
  , mechanical design
  , dynamics
  , vibration
  , controls
  , reliability
  , and manufacturability
  .
• Assess the technical correctness and feasibility of engineering solutions for real-world problems.
• Identify incorrect assumptions, design deficiencies, failure modes, and potential implementation risks.
• Develop or review engineering problems, reference solutions, evaluation criteria, and supporting documentation.
• Draw on practical experience with design
  , simulation
  , prototyping
  , hardware integration
  , test
  , validation
  , qualification
  , debugging
  , and manufacturing
  .
• Provide clear technical feedback grounded in real-world engineering experience and established principles.

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 5+ years of professional mechanical engineering experience, including at least 3 years of recent hands‑on experience in hardware development, analysis, testing, validation, integration, or troubleshooting.
• Experience as the responsible engineer for real hardware or physical systems
  , owning portions of the engineering lifecycle.
• Deep technical expertise in at least one core domain:
  structural/stress analysis and FEA
  , thermal analysis
  , mechanical design
  , or dynamics and controls
  .
• Strong command of materials
  , loads and boundary conditions
  , structural margins
  , fatigue
  , thermal constraints
  , tolerances/GD&T,
  component selection
  , reliability
  , manufacturability
  , system integration
  , and failure-mode analysis
  .
• Extensive hands‑on experience analyzing, testing, debugging, and validating physical hardware using relevant tools such as CAD/CAE
  , FEA
  , CFD/thermal simulation
  , and test instrumentation
  .
• Proven experience developing hardware in real-world product or manufacturing environments
  .

Preferred

• Experience working for a company that designs, builds, tests, and manufactures physical hardware products or systems
  .

Resources & Support

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