Structural Engineer, R&D

Fluidstack

$110K — $130K *
Aerospace & Defense
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of experience in structural analysis and design of pressure-containing components.
  • Proven experience transitioning designs from calculations to fabrication while ensuring integrity.
  • Hands-on experience conducting finite element analysis (FEA) on rotating elements with real-world data validation.
  • Demonstrated ability to design containment structures with a strong understanding of safety implications.
  • Experience collaborating with aerodynamic designers to influence early-stage design decisions.

Responsibilities

  • Conduct structural analysis focusing on impeller, rotor, and casing stress.
  • Design and validate pressure-containing structures from initial calculations to final hardware.
  • Collaborate with turbomachinery engineers on rotordynamic and modal analysis.
  • Create containment designs to ensure safety during energetic failure events.
  • Manage the design and testing of structural fixtures for operational loads.

Benefits

  • Collaborative work environment focused on innovation and problem-solving.
  • Opportunities to work on projects impacting large-scale thermal management technology.
  • A culture that values and encourages exceptional talent, regardless of strict role alignment.
  • Support for professional development and the pursuit of licensure in engineering.
Full Job Description
The Thermofluids R&D Team

Examples of key problems the team is working on
  • Reject more than 10 gigawatts of heat, starting now. Fluidstack is targeting 10 GW of compute in 2027 and 30 GW the year after. Every watt of it becomes heat that has to go somewhere, and no cooling team has ever been asked to open at that number rather than grow into it.
  • Design and build the machines, because nobody can supply them. The merchant compressor market cannot deliver at this rate, and the vendor base behind today's chillers will not scale to gigawatts. We are taking compressor and chiller design in house, working on machine architectures nobody sells today, and going from blank sheet to production faster than this industry thinks is possible.
  • Own every thermofluids problem behind the fleet, not just the chiller. Working fluid and cycle architecture, heat exchangers at a scale that dominates the cost of the plant, two-phase heat transfer at the chip, and thermal energy storage. All of it is open, and whatever this team lands gets built thousands of times.
Role Scope
  • Own the structural analysis of the machine: impeller and rotor stress, casing and pressure containment, and the load paths through the packaged unit.
  • Design the pressure-containing structures, and carry them from first calculation to hardware people are willing to stand next to.
  • Run the rotordynamic and modal work alongside the turbomachinery engineer, covering critical speeds, whirl and the magnetic bearing interface.
  • Design the containment case, so an energetic failure at speed stays inside the machine.
  • Design the test cell structures and fixturing that carry the article, the drive and the loop under load.


What We're Looking For

The below is a starting point. We always make space for exceptional people, so if you don't fit this role exactly, tell us where you would.
  • You've taken a pressure-containing design from calculation through to a fabricated article, and it held.
  • You've run FEA on rotating hardware and correlated it against strain gauge, spin-pit or test data rather than trusting the model.
  • You've owned a containment or burst case and made the argument for why it holds to people whose safety depended on it.
  • You've worked the modal and critical-speed problem jointly with whoever designed the aerodynamics, early enough to change both.
  • You've signed off a structure that got built, and you were there when it was first loaded.
  • Bonus: Flight and propulsion structures (spin pit testing, burst margin, containment). Rotordynamics and bearing dynamics. High-cycle fatigue and fracture on rotating hardware. Pressure vessel and containment design. Professional Engineer license.


We are committed to pay equity and transparency.

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