Senior Mechanical Design Engineer – Liquid Cooling Systems

United StatesRemoteFull-timesenior

EngineeringMechanical Design Engineer

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Quick Summary

Overview

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps.

Technical Tools

EngineeringMechanical Design Engineer

Lead the mechanical design of advanced liquid cooling and fluid distribution systems for modular AI data center platforms.
You’ll own critical cooling architecture spanning heat rejection, pumps, piping, manifolds, CDUs, rack cooling, and modular interconnects.
The role combines mechanical design, hydraulic engineering, thermal infrastructure, controls, manufacturing, and commissioning.
You’ll translate system requirements into repeatable designs that can be manufactured, deployed, serviced, and scaled across multiple sites.
You’ll establish technical standards, interfaces, design rules, and commissioning practices that shape the underlying product architecture.
Working across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, controls, and field teams, you’ll solve complex system challenges with significant autonomy.
This is an opportunity to help develop high-performance infrastructure for AI and other demanding, high-reliability environments.

Own the end-to-end mechanical cooling and fluid-distribution architecture for modular data center platforms, defining primary, secondary, and rack-level cooling boundaries as well as pumping, flow control, pressure management, balancing, and redundancy strategies.
Integrate heat-rejection equipment, distribution piping, coolant distribution units, rack manifolds, rear-door heat exchangers, and other cooling interfaces into scalable architectures supporting multiple configurations and deployment sizes.
Perform and review pipe-sizing, flow, pressure-drop, pump-head, and system-volume calculations, developing hydraulic models for water- and glycol-based systems while accounting for fluid properties, fittings, valves, strainers, heat exchangers, and equipment losses.
Define control-valve, balancing-valve, bypass, minimum-flow, and differential-pressure strategies and validate performance across normal, part-load, maintenance, startup, and failure conditions.
Own P&IDs, mechanical schematics, equipment schedules, valve schedules, instrumentation requirements, design calculations, mechanical design criteria, basis-of-design documents, and standard details.
Establish clear equipment and scope boundaries between plant systems, modules, CDUs, rack cooling, and field interconnections while maintaining disciplined revision control and technical traceability.
Review vendor drawings, submittals, calculations, and equipment selections to ensure compliance with system requirements and overall design intent.
Define mechanical interfaces between factory-built modules and field-installed infrastructure, including supply and return piping, manifolds, flexible connections, isolation valves, quick disconnects, drains, vents, and leak detection.
Develop designs that support repeatable fabrication, assembly, inspection, testing, installation, transport, rapid deployment, and phased expansion.
Standardize piping routes, fittings, valve assemblies, supports, connection points, and mechanical components where practical, while ensuring adequate equipment clearances, removal paths, service access, drainage, venting, and filter or strainer access.
Partner with manufacturing teams to resolve buildability challenges and incorporate factory and field feedback into future product revisions.
Define mechanical measurement and control requirements covering temperature, flow, pressure, differential pressure, fluid level, leak detection, pump status, and valve position.
Collaborate with controls engineers on operating sequences, alarm strategies, pump staging, variable-speed control, minimum-flow protection, equipment enablement, and failure-response logic.
Design systems for safe and efficient filling, flushing, venting, draining, testing, balancing, and startup, while defining isolation, bypass, temporary connection, and load-bank testing requirements.
Develop or support factory acceptance, site acceptance, and integrated systems testing procedures and establish performance-verification criteria for flow, pressure, temperature, heat rejection, controls, alarms, and failure modes.
Work directly with commissioning and field teams during startup and troubleshooting, identifying system issues and driving practical resolutions.
Partner with thermal, electrical, controls, structural, manufacturing, commissioning, supply chain, and product teams to identify interface risks, design gaps, and single points of failure early.
Coordinate with OEMs, equipment manufacturers, fabricators, and engineering partners while communicating complex system behavior clearly to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

Requirements

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7+ years of experience designing mechanical cooling, hydraulic distribution, process cooling, or mission-critical infrastructure systems.
Experience in data centers, semiconductor facilities, industrial process cooling, central utility plants, or comparable high-reliability environments.
Strong technical knowledge of pipe sizing, pump selection, pressure-drop analysis, flow balancing, system volume, and hydraulic control.
Proven experience developing and owning P&IDs, mechanical calculations, equipment schedules, valve schedules, and instrumentation requirements.
Practical knowledge of chilled-water, condenser-water, glycol, or process-fluid systems.
Experience designing systems for commissioning, maintenance, isolation, flushing, venting, draining, and service access.
Ability to coordinate effectively across engineering, manufacturing, controls, commissioning, supply chain, and field teams.
Strong technical judgment, ownership, problem-solving ability, and confidence working with limited oversight.
Experience with direct liquid cooling for AI or HPC systems is highly desirable.
Familiarity with CDUs, rack manifolds, cold plates, rear-door heat exchangers, liquid-to-liquid heat exchangers, or liquid-to-air cooling systems is a plus.
Experience with modular, prefabricated, skid-based, or containerized infrastructure is beneficial.
Experience using AFT Fathom, Pipe-Flo, or comparable hydraulic modeling tools is preferred.
Familiarity with CFD, thermal modeling, or transient analysis is advantageous.
Proficiency with AutoCAD, Revit, Plant 3D, SolidWorks, Inventor, or similar mechanical design tools is a plus.
Experience supporting FAT, SAT, IST, or field commissioning activities is beneficial.
A Professional Engineer license or equivalent technical depth is preferred.
Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, collaborative communication, intellectual curiosity, and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment are important for success.

What We Offer

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✓Competitive base salary with U.S. geographic pay ranges: Tier 1: $157,600–$185,000 for markets such as the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, and Seattle.

✓Tier 2: $137,040–$171,300 for most U.S. metropolitan areas.

✓Tier 3: $130,188–$162,735 for other U.S. cities.

✓Final compensation may vary based on experience, scope, level, skills, qualifications, and location.

✓Equity opportunity in addition to base compensation.

✓Subsidized medical, dental, and vision insurance.

✓Health Savings Account (HSA) and flexible spending account options, including dependent care FSA.

✓Retirement plan options including 401(k) and Roth 401(k).

✓Unlimited paid time off (PTO).

✓14 paid company holidays per year.

✓Fully remote position within the United States.

✓Opportunity to work on advanced liquid cooling and modular infrastructure supporting AI and high-performance computing environments.

✓High level of ownership and autonomy with the opportunity to influence product architecture, technical standards, manufacturing practices, and commissioning strategies.

✓Cross-functional exposure across mechanical, thermal, electrical, controls, manufacturing, supply chain, and field engineering disciplines.