Controls Engineer, Thermofluids [Remote]

About Fluidstack

We exist to make humanity more free. For most of human history, you farmed or you starved. Technology gave people more time for the things they wanted to do, instead of things they had to do. Powerful AI will be the biggest lever for human choice we've ever built - but only if models are aligned with what humanity actually wants. There are groups building AI who don't share these goals. Whoever deploys frontier compute infrastructure fastest will decide whether AI expands human freedom or shrinks it.

We're singularly focused on delivering 10 to 100s of GWs of compute faster than anyone else, rethinking every layer of the stack. We acquire power, design and build data centers, and operate them - with teams spanning hardware and software. Speed and scale are our key differentiators. Come be a part of building civilization-scale infrastructure for AI.

We hire people who care deeply about this problem space. If that is you, please apply!

How We Operate

• Be a barrel. Full autonomy. Own things end to end, take on scope without being asked, no permission required to operate outside your core role.

• Insane urgency. We drive everything forward as fast as possible.

• Reason from first principles. Challenge every assumption. Zero analogy thinking, no egos, the best idea wins.

• Love of the game. The frontier of AI is the most interesting problem of our time. We put in long hours at high intensity to push the frontier forward.

• Build something that actually matters. If you're going to spend your time, spend it on something that matters to the world.

The Thermofluids R&D Team

Examples of key problems the team is working on

• Reject 10s of GW of heat, starting now. Fluidstack is targeting 10s of GW of compute over the next two years. Every watt of it becomes heat that has to go somewhere, and no cooling team has ever been asked to open at that scale rather than grow into it.

• Design and build the machines, because nobody can supply them. The merchant compressor market cannot deliver at this rate, and the vendor base behind today’s chillers will not scale to gigawatts. We are taking compressor and chiller design in house, working on machine architectures nobody sells today, and going from blank sheet to production faster than this industry thinks is possible.

• Own every thermofluids problem behind the fleet, not just the chiller. Working fluid and cycle architecture, heat exchangers at a scale that dominates the cost of the plant, two-phase heat transfer at the chip, and thermal energy storage. All of it is open, and whatever this team lands gets built thousands of times.
  

Role Scope

• Own the control architecture for the machine and the test rigs, spanning the compressor, the motor drive, the expansion turbine and the loop around them.

• Write the safety interlocks and fault handling for a machine whose working fluid can cross its critical point inside the normal operating range, taking the control problem with it.

• Deliver capacity control through motor and turbine speed rather than throttling valves, keeping the process fluid path free of valves at the design point.

• Validate the control system against hardware-in-the-loop before it ever touches the real machine, and prove the interlocks fire.

• Carry the controls out of the test cell and into the production chiller, including integration with site BMS and the wider plant.

What We're Looking For

The below is a starting point. We always make space for exceptional people, so if you don't fit this role exactly, tell us where you would .

• 10+ years of experience in controls engineering for rotating machinery, including control architecture, safety interlocks, and hardware-in-the-loop validation.

• You’ve written control logic for rotating machinery and you were in the room the first time it ran.

• You’ve designed interlocks where a fault means destroyed hardware or an injured person, and you can justify every one of them from first principles.

• You’ve run hardware-in-the-loop testing that caught something real before it reached commissioning.

• You’ve tuned loops on a live machine and worked out why the model and the plant disagreed.

• You’ve handed a control system to people who did not write it, with documentation they could actually use at three in the morning.

• You're comfortable with regular travel: expect 25% or more, depending on business needs.

• Most of our engineering team, stakeholders, and work are based in Austin, TX, and we value working in person. We have a strong preference for Austin and run a hybrid model, but we're open to other locations for the right role and candidate.

• Bonus: Propulsion or vehicle test controls (engine sequencing, abort and safing logic). Variable-speed drives and high-speed motor control (VFDs, magnetic bearing controllers). Refrigeration and chiller control (superheat, head pressure, capacity staging). Industrial control platforms (Beckhoff, Siemens, Allen-Bradley, CODESYS). Model-based development and HIL (Simulink, dSPACE, NI VeriStand).

We are committed to pay equity and transparency.

Fluidstack is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans’ status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Fluidstack will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records pursuant to applicable law.

You will receive a confirmation email once your application has successfully been accepted. If there is an error with your submission and you did not receive a confirmation email, please email View email address on jobs.ashbyhq.com with your resume/CV, the role you've applied for, and the date you submitted your application-- someone from our recruiting team will be in touch.