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Thermal Engineer Engineer

Who we are

Arqus is a space defence company. Our mission is to keep order in orbit. Just as a fighter jet secures the skies and a navy ship secures the seas, we are building the systems that will protect every asset above us, the satellites our economies, our security, and our daily lives now depend on.

Space has become contested. As the orbital domain fills with infrastructure and threats alike, Europe cannot afford to leave its most critical assets undefended. We believe Europe must have sovereign means to deter, defend, and uphold law and order beyond the atmosphere, and we take the responsibility of building those means seriously.

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We are an ambitious team of engineers, physicists, and operators applying directed-energy and autonomy to one of the hardest problems there is. We are looking for mission-driven people who want to defend the high ground, and who welcome honest debate about the use of force in space, its limits, and its ethics.

Your Role & Responsibilities

You keep our systems at the right temperature. High-power lasers, drive electronics, and compute generate heat that has to go somewhere, whether the system sits on a vehicle in the desert or on a satellite in orbit. You own the thermal design of our C-UAS systems and space payloads. You own the full chain: thermal architecture, models, heat paths, cooling hardware, supplier contact, test, and model correlation. 

What you’ll build

  • Thermal architecture for high-power directed-energy effectors, electronics, and compute assemblies

  • Thermal models for terrestrial and orbital operation, correlated against test data

  • Cooling hardware: heat sinks, heat pipes, liquid cooling loops, radiators, and interface materials

  • Thermal design for arctic, desert, marine, and vehicle environments, including sustained and duty-cycled operation

  • Thermal test setups, and thermal balance and thermal vacuum test planning

  • Integration of thermal solutions with the mechanical, electronics, and optics teams

What we are looking for

You must have NATO member state citizenship.
 

Required
 

  • MSc in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent

  • 3+ years of thermal design and analysis, or a strong junior with thermal hardware they designed and tested

  • Conduction, convection, and radiation from first principles: you size a design before you model it

  • Thermal analysis tools: ESATAN-TMS, Thermal Desktop, Ansys, or equivalent

  • Hands-on thermal testing: thermocouples, data acquisition, and correlating models against measurements

  • You have designed thermal hardware that was built and operated, not just simulated
     

Good to Have
 

  • Space thermal design and ECSS-E-ST-31C practice

  • Thermal vacuum and thermal balance testing

  • Cooling of high-power lasers or power electronics

  • CFD for air and liquid cooling

  • Heat pipes, loop heat pipes, or phase change materials

  • CAD experience
     

Full-time, on-site in Munich. Early-employee equity.

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