Thermal Test Engineer

The Role

Mach Industries is seeking a Thermal Test Engineer to support the development, qualification, and production of aerospace and defense systems. This role will be responsible for planning, developing, executing, and analyzing thermal and environmental tests on components, subsystems, and integrated systems.

The Thermal Test Engineer will work closely with Mechanical, Thermal, Systems, Electrical, Manufacturing, Quality, and Program teams to ensure products meet defined thermal performance, reliability, and environmental requirements.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute thermal and environmental test plans for aerospace and defense hardware, including components, subsystems, and system-level assemblies.
• Develop detailed test procedures, test requirements, instrumentation plans, test configurations, and test readiness documentation.
• Plan and execute thermal cycling, thermal vacuum (TVAC), thermal soak, temperature/humidity, high/low temperature, and other environmental tests as applicable to program requirements.
• Support qualification, acceptance, development, and verification testing throughout the product lifecycle.
• Configure and operate environmental test chambers, thermal vacuum chambers, thermal cycling equipment, and associated test systems.
• Select, install, calibrate, and verify test instrumentation including thermocouples, RTDs, pressure sensors, heat flux sensors, and other data acquisition instrumentation.
• Monitor test execution and ensure test conditions remain within approved limits and procedures.
• Collect, process, reduce, and analyze thermal test data to evaluate product performance against requirements.
• Identify and troubleshoot test anomalies, instrumentation issues, chamber/equipment problems, and hardware performance issues.
• Support root-cause investigations for thermal test failures and unexpected test results.
• Support thermal model validation and correlation using test data.
• Generate comprehensive test reports documenting test configuration, procedures, results, anomalies, conclusions, and recommendations.
• Participate in engineering reviews including test readiness reviews, preliminary/design reviews, test result reviews, and failure review boards.
• Support development and continuous improvement of thermal test methods, processes, fixtures, instrumentation, and laboratory capabilities.
• Develop and maintain test equipment, procedures, work instructions, and standard operating procedures.
• Coordinate with internal teams, suppliers, external test facilities, and customers as required.
• Ensure testing is performed in accordance with applicable aerospace, military, customer, quality, safety, and environmental requirements.
• Support test equipment calibration, maintenance, troubleshooting, and laboratory safety activities.
• Maintain accurate test records, configuration documentation, test logs, and engineering data.
• Support multiple concurrent test programs and communicate test status, risks, and issues to program stakeholders.
• Travel to external test facilities or customer sites as required.

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Engineering Physics, or a related engineering discipline.
• 2+ years of experience in thermal testing, environmental testing, test engineering, or a related aerospace/defense engineering discipline.
• Hands-on experience developing and executing engineering test procedures.
• Experience with thermal chambers and/or thermal vacuum (TVAC) chambers.
• Experience with thermal cycling, thermal soak, temperature testing, or other environmental qualification testing.
• Experience with test instrumentation such as thermocouples, RTDs, pressure transducers, temperature sensors, and data acquisition systems.
• Ability to interpret engineering drawings, specifications, requirements, schematics, and test documentation.
• Experience collecting, processing, analyzing, and presenting engineering test data.
• Strong troubleshooting and root-cause analysis skills.
• Experience writing technical documentation, including test procedures and test reports.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to work effectively in a hands-on test environment.
• Ability to work collaboratively with multidisciplinary engineering and manufacturing teams.
• Ability to work safely around high-temperature, low-temperature, vacuum, electrical, and other potentially hazardous test environments.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain required security clearance, if applicable to the position.
• Must meet applicable U.S. export-control requirements, if applicable to the position.

Preferred Qualifications 

• Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Thermal Sciences, or a related technical discipline.
• 5+ years of experience in aerospace, defense, space, aviation, or other high-reliability product testing.
• Direct experience with thermal vacuum testing and spacecraft or aerospace hardware qualification.
• Experience with combined environmental testing, including thermal/vibration, thermal/shock, or thermal/acoustic testing.
• Experience with aerospace and military environmental test standards such as MIL-STD-810, RTCA DO-160, NASA/GSFC standards, SMC-S-016, or applicable customer-specific requirements.
• Experience with qualification, acceptance, and development testing of flight hardware.
• Experience with LabVIEW, NI DAQ/PXI, MATLAB, Python, or similar test/data-analysis tools.
• Experience developing automated test and data acquisition systems.
• Experience with thermal analysis and modeling tools such as ANSYS, Thermal Desktop, SINDA/FLUINT, COMSOL, or equivalent.
• Experience correlating thermal test data with analytical or computational thermal models.
• Familiarity with spacecraft thermal control hardware, avionics, electronics, propulsion systems, structures, or other aerospace subsystems.
• Experience designing or developing thermal test fixtures and test setups.
• Experience with instrumentation calibration, measurement uncertainty, and test-data quality assessment.
• Experience performing formal root-cause analysis using methods such as 5-Why, Fishbone/Ishikawa, or 8D.
• Experience supporting external test laboratories and customer/government test activities.
• Active U.S. Secret, Top Secret, or higher security clearance, where applicable.
• Experience working within configuration-controlled engineering and product development environments.

Additional Requirements