Manager, Thermal

About Eridu

Eridu is a Silicon Valley-based hardware startup pioneering infrastructure solutions that accelerate AI data centers to deliver Faster AI. Today’s AI performance is frequently limited by communication bottlenecks. Eridu introduces multiple industry-first innovations across silicon, packaging, software, and systems to deliver an order of magnitude improvement in performance and unlock greater GPU utilization to speed training job completion times and tokens-per-second for more profitable inference. We do this while simultaneously reducing capital and power costs and improving reliability.

The company’s solutions and value proposition have been widely validated by leading hyperscalers.

Eridu has raised over $200M to date including its most recent, oversubscribed Series A round. The company is led by a veteran team of Silicon Valley executives who have delivered multiple billion dollar product lines and led multiple companies to billion dollar exits, including serial entrepreneur Drew Perkins, co-founder of Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN), Lightera (acq. by Ciena), Gainspeed (acq. by Nokia) and Mojo Vision (the world’s leading micro-LED company). The company is in execution mode and has a world-class engineering team with decades of experience in state-of-the-art silicon, packaging, optics, software, and systems. Eridu is working with best-in-class supply chain partners including silicon, packaging and systems.

Visit our website eridu.ai to learn more.

Position Overview

We're hiring a Thermal Engineering Manager to lead thermal architecture and the team that delivers it across our switching and interconnect hardware. You'll report to the Director of Thermal and Mechanical Engineering and lead a team of thermal engineers. This is a player-coach role. You'll set the cooling strategy from package to rack, grow the team, and stay hands-on enough to own the hardest thermal calls, from early silicon co-design through production.

What You'll Do

• Lead, hire, and develop a team of thermal and mechanical engineers, with regular 1:1s, clear goals, and honest feedback.
• Drive liquid-cooling design: cold plates, manifolds, quick disconnects, blind-mate fluid connections, and hot-pluggable serviceability.
• Drive contract manufacturer cost reductions
• Work directly with suppliers and hold them accountable for maintaining and meeting schedules.
• Partner with ASIC, package, and power engineers early to set power budgets, junction temperature limits, and package-level thermal solutions.
• Lead TIM selection and qualification, including reliability testing and process control with contract manufacturers.
• Direct CFD and thermal modeling at component, board, chassis, and rack level, and correlate models against test data.
• Build and run thermal validation: test vehicles, wind tunnel and flow-bench testing, thermocouple and IR measurement, and flow and pressure-drop characterization.
• Define thermal requirements for optics, pluggables, and power delivery, and align them with mechanical, system, and customer rack requirements.
• Guide mechanical design of chassis and enclosures so airflow, coolant routing, and serviceability work together from the start.
• Own thermal schedules, resource plans, and risk tracking across multiple concurrent programs.
• Work directly with contract manufacturers which includes nightly team calls

Who You Are

• MS in Mechanical Engineering or a related field, with a focus on heat transfer, fluid mechanics, or thermodynamics.
• 10+ years of thermal engineering experience on high-power electronics, including 3+ years managing engineers.
• A track record of delivering thermal solutions for networking, telecom, server, or similar rack-mounted systems through volume production.
• Hands-on liquid-cooling experience, ideally cold plates and rack-level fluid distribution.
• Expert use of CFD tools (e.g., FloTHERM, Icepak, 6SigmaET, or Star-CCM+) and a strong habit of correlating models to measurement.
• Experience with thermal test labs, instrumentation, and data analysis.
• Solid working knowledge of mechanical design, CAD (Creo, SolidWorks, or NX), and DFM.
• Clear communication with engineers, silicon and system partners, suppliers, and leadership.

Nice to Have

• PhD in Mechanical Engineering with a heat transfer or fluids focus.
• Experience cooling large custom ASICs or AI accelerators and high-density pluggable optics (QSFP-DD, OSFP).
• Familiarity with OCP rack specifications, CDUs, facility water requirements, and liquid-cooling reliability (leak detection, fluid compatibility, corrosion).
• Experience qualifying TIMs, cold plates, or quick disconnects with overseas suppliers and CMs.
• Exposure to two-phase or immersion cooling.
• Experience building a team or function at an early-stage startup.

Logistics

Item

Detail

Location

Saratoga, CA (on-site)

Reports to

Director of Thermal and Mechanical Engineering

Team size

3-6

Travel

Approximately 20%

Eridu AI is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of any legally protected characteristic.

Why Join Us?

At Eridu, you’ll have the opportunity to shape the future of AI infrastructure, working with a world-class team on groundbreaking technology that pushes the boundaries of AI performance. Your contributions will directly impact the next generation of AI infrastructure solutions, transforming the performance of AI data centers.

The starting base salary for the selected candidate will be established based on their relevant skills, experience, qualifications, work location, market trends, and the compensation of employees in comparable roles.

Notice to Recruiting Agencies

Eridu does not accept unsolicited resumes or candidate profiles from staffing agencies or third-party recruiters. Any candidate submitted to Eridu without prior written authorization from our recruiting team will be considered unsolicited and will become the property of Eridu. Eridu reserves the right to pursue and hire such candidates without any obligation to pay fees. Recruiting agencies are expressly instructed not to contact hiring managers, employees, or executives regarding open positions.