Senior Thermal Engineer

Job description

About the Role Uber is launching AV Labs to accelerate the autonomous technology ecosystem. We're building out a high-velocity team of multi-disciplinary experts to turn real-world operations into high-quality data for our autonomous partners. This team is focused on the hardest problem in AV today: unlocking real-world, long-tail driving data. Autonomy is now a data race—and Uber has an edge: We collect rare, real-world driving data at a scale and capital efficiency no one else can match.

As a Senior Thermal Engineer at Uber AV Labs, you will own thermal design, validation, and troubleshooting for autonomous vehicle hardware. This is a highly hands-on role working directly with sensors, compute systems, vehicle hardware, and environmental systems from prototype through production.

Core Responsibilities

Own end to end thermal design and validation for vehicle hardware, including compute units, power electronics and sensor systems Design practical thermal solutions using liquid cooling, conduction, convection, heat sinks, fans/blowers, heaters, insulation, and thermal interface materials. Design and develop liquid cooling systems, including coolant loops, cold plates, pumps, heat exchangers/radiators, reservoirs, valves, hoses, and vehicle integration.

Build and instrument prototypes; perform bench, thermal chamber, and vehicle testing across hot/cold environmental conditions. Perform thermal and fluid calculations to size cooling components and evaluate system performance. Use thermal/CFD simulation where appropriate and correlate models against physical test data. Troubleshoot thermal and cooling-system issues directly on vehicles and hardware, identify root causes, and implement corrective actions.

Work closely with mechanical, electrical, sensor, compute, vehicle integration, and operation teams. Drive designs from early prototype through validation builds and release in production.

Basic Qualifications

BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering or a related engineering discipline. 5+ years of thermal engineering experience, preferably in automotive, autonomous vehicles, robotics, aerospace, or high-power electronics. Strong hands-on experience designing, building, and validating cooling systems. Demonstrated experience with liquid cooling. Strong hands-on experience building, instrumenting, and testing thermal systems. Strong understanding of heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and electronics thermal management.

Experience with environmental chambers and vehicle-level hot/cold testing. Experience with CAD (Solidworks, NX, Catia or equivalent) and mechanical design Comfortable working directly with prototype hardware, test equipment, and vehicles. Demonstrated ability to take an ambiguous thermal problem from measurement → root cause → design → validation.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with thermal/CFD tools Automotive coolant-loop or vehicle thermal-management experience. Familiarity with automotive validation, reliability testing, and production design processes.

Responsibilities

For Sunnyvale, CA-based roles

The base salary range for this role is USD $180,000 per year - USD $200,000 per year. You will be eligible to participate in Uber's bonus program, and may be offered an equity award & other types of comp. All full-time employees are eligible to participate in a 401(k) plan. You will also be eligible for various benefits.