Mechanical Design Engineer, Thermal

About the role

Join our dynamic and agile team pioneering Ford's EV future. As a Mechanical Design Engineer for Thermal Systems, you will own the physical design of thermal hardware across the entire system — coolant loops, refrigeration/heat-pump circuits, and HVAC/climate — turning thermal performance targets into robust, manufacturable components and assemblies. You will help design and package hardware that keep the battery, drive units, power electronics, and cabin within their thermal limits all the way from concept through production release.

What you'll do

• Component & Assembly Design: Design thermal hardware across coolant, refrigeration, and HVAC/climate subsystems in 3D CAD from concept through production release.
• System Packaging & Routing: Package and route thermal hardware through the vehicle, resolving space, interface, and clearance constraints with adjacent systems (battery, drive unit, power electronics, IP, chassis, and body) and coordinating shared interfaces across subsystems.
• Performance-Driven Design: Translate thermal, hydraulic, and refrigerant performance targets from the system and subsystem engineers into physical geometry — flow paths, sealing, mounting, and heat-exchanger placement — that meets thermal, pressure, and flow requirements.
• Design for Manufacture & Assembly (DFM/DFA): Develop designs optimized for their manufacturing processes (injection molding, brazing, stamping, extrusion, machining) and for high-volume assembly, working with full service and build to print suppliers on tooling and process feasibility to balance cost, mass, and quality.
• Tolerance & GD&T: Apply geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, perform tolerance stack-up analysis, and define critical dimensions to ensure fit, sealing, and function across the production range and across mating subsystems.
• Design Analysis & Robustness: Support structural, flow, thermal, and durability analysis (CFD/FEA in partnership with analysis teams), and use DFMEA to identify and mitigate various failure modes.
• Engineering Documentation: Create and release detailed part and assembly drawings, manage engineering changes, and maintain CAD data and bills of materials through the product development process.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with the system and subsystem engineers (who own performance targets), Controls Engineers (for actuator/valve strategy), test engineers (for validation), and suppliers (for tooling and build), supporting design reviews and readiness gates through launch.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.
• 3+ years of experience in mechanical design of automotive components or systems.
• Proficiency in 3D CAD (CATIA, NX, or 3DEXPERIENCE) for part and assembly modeling and detailing.
• Working knowledge of GD&T and tolerance stack-up analysis.
• Solid understanding of design for manufacture and assembly across multiple processes (e.g., molding, brazing, stamping).
• Familiarity with heat transfer, fluid dynamics, and pressure-system fundamentals as they apply to thermal hardware.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in a relevant engineering discipline.
• Direct experience designing thermal hardware — coolant loops, refrigeration/heat-pump circuits, heat exchangers, or HVAC units.
• Experience with EV thermal management systems (battery, drive unit, power electronics, and cabin cooling/heating).
• Familiarity with refrigeration and HVAC systems.
• Experience with actuator- and valve-driven hardware and control interfaces.
• Experience with DFMEA, DVP&R, and the release/change-management process for production parts.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year's Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time

Pay

This position is a salary grade 7-8 and ranges from $100,400-$232,700. Final determination of salary grade will be based on candidate's skills and experience, and base salary will be set within the applicable range according to job scope, responsibility and competitive market value.

Schedule

This position is hybrid. Candidates who are in commuting distance to a Ford hub location may be required to be onsite four or more days per week.

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