AI/HPC Cluster Thermal Design Engineer (Austin)

WHAT YOU DO AT AMD CHANGES EVERYTHING At AMD, our mission is to build great products that accelerate next-generation computing experiences—from AI and data centers, to PCs, gaming and embedded systems. Grounded in a culture of innovation and collaboration, we believe real progress comes from bold ideas, human ingenuity and a shared passion to create something extraordinary. When you join AMD, you’ll discover the real differentiator is our culture. We push the limits of innovation to solve the world’s most important challenges—striving for execution excellence, while being direct, humble, collaborative, and inclusive of diverse perspectives. Join us as we shape the future of AI and beyond. Together, we advance your career. THE ROLEWe are seeking a Cluster Thermal Engineer to help architect and deliver scalable thermal solutions for AI/HPC clusters and data center deployments. In this role, you will support the evaluation, modeling, and validation of cooling architectures for high-density platforms. You will work closely with system architects, platform engineers, and data center operations teams to ensure thermal performance, reliability, and serviceability across development and deployment environments.THE PERSONYou are an early-career mechanical/thermal engineer with strong fundamentals in heat transfer, thermodynamics, and fluid dynamics, and a keen interest in AI/HPC infrastructure and data center cooling. You enjoy hands-on problem solving, learning complex systems, and collaborating across disciplines. You communicate clearly, document your work well, and are motivated to grow your expertise in cluster- and facility-scale thermal architecture.KEY RESPONSIBILITIES- Support the thermal design of AI/HPC cluster solutions, including compute racks, cooling loops, and facility interfaces.- Assist in evaluating cooling architectures (air cooling, direct liquid cooling, hybrid approaches) and identifying trade-offs in performance, cost, complexity, and reliability.- Build and refine thermal and airflow models for system/cluster/data center concepts using industry tools (e.g., OpenFOAM, ANSYS, FloTHERM, or similar).- Contribute to flow-network modeling for liquid cooling and coolant distribution analyses to ensure adequate flow, pressure, and temperature margins.- Help define and execute test plans to validate thermal performance at component, system, and rack/cluster levels.- Support integration of cooling solutions and thermal telemetry at the cluster level in collaboration with power, networking, platform, firmware, and controls teams.- Participate in design reviews with internal stakeholders and external partners/customers; summarize findings and track action items.- Assist with experimental setup, instrumentation, data collection, and analysis in partnership with validation and lab teams.- Create and maintain technical documentation, including requirements, design notes, modeling assumptions, test reports, and user/customer-facing summaries.- Support issue triage and root-cause analysis for thermal performance and reliability concerns during bring-up and deployment.PREFERRED EXPERIENCE / SKILLS- Strong understanding of fundamentals: thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, and heat transfer.- Familiarity with electronics cooling concepts (heat sinks, cold plates, TIMs, heat exchangers, pumps, valves, fans).- Exposure to data center or cluster thermal concepts such as: - rack/row layout considerations, - CDU/coolant distribution, - RDHx/AHU/fan-wall concepts, - chilled water interfaces and heat rejection.- Exposure to one or more thermal/CFD simulation tools (ANSYS, COMSOL, FloTHERM, OpenFOAM, or similar).- Familiarity with measurement and validation practices (instrumentation, uncertainty, sensor placement, data analysis).- Comfort working in cross-functional engineering environments and communicating technical ideas clearly.- Bonus: understanding of PUE/WUE drivers, economizers/free cooling, or waste-heat reuse concepts.- Bonus: coursework in heat transfer, thermodynamics, two-phase flow and heat transfer, refrigeration-Bonus: projects, internships, or research related to HPC/AI infrastructure, data centers, or high-power electronics cooling.ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS- Bachelor’s, Master’s or Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering with expertise in thermal management of electronics.This role is not eligible for Visa Sponsorship.#LI-KW1Benefits offered are described: AMD benefits at a glance.AMD does not accept unsolicited resumes from headhunters, recruitment agencies, or fee-based recruitment services. AMD and its subsidiaries are equal opportunity, inclusive employers and will consider all applicants without regard to age, ancestry, color, marital status, medical condition, mental or physical disability, national origin, race, religion, political and/or third-party affiliation, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We encourage applications from all qualified candidates and will accommodate applicants’ needs under the respective laws throughout all stages of the recruitment and selection process.AMD may use Artificial Intelligence to help screen, assess or select applicants for this position. AMD’s “Responsible AI Policy” is available here.This posting is for an existing vacancy.