Thermodynamics Engineer

Drogue is building free-floating, off-grid energy platforms at sea for customers who can't get power fast enough on land. Using the ocean's thermal gradient, each platform generates affordable, baseload electricity with no grid interconnection queues, no permitting delays, and no fuel supply chains.

We're a small team of engineers taking on a first-of-its-kind challenge with proven hardware and first principles thinking. If you love hard problems and want to build something new, keep reading.

This is the role that makes our economics work. As a Thermodynamics Engineer you’ll model and simulate the thermal architecture of the entire platform: from ocean thermal to waste heat recovery to turn rejected compute heat back into usable power. The ocean is both our heat sink and our energy source, and you'll be in charge of choosing the best ways to optimize our system.

Responsibilities:

• Design and optimize ocean thermal energy systems that leverage seawater temperature differentials for power generation

• Architect waste heat recovery systems, capturing thermal output from high-density compute and recovering it via ORC

• Own working fluid selection, thermodynamic cycle optimization, turbine performance, and heat exchanger design

• Build and validate thermal models from first principles through empirical testing; own the instrumentation strategy that makes those models trustworthy

Qualifications:

• B.S./M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or closely related field with a strong thermodynamics focus

• Direct experience designing, building, and testing thermal energy systems and/or power plants: heat pumps, ORC, waste heat recovery, enhanced geothermal, ocean thermal, or similar

• Ability to work across disciplines and think at the full-system level, not just the component level

This role is based in Washington, D.C. and will include time at sea. We offer generous relocation assistance for candidates across the US. We pay our employees competitive salaries based on level of experience and offer meaningful equity in a fast growing company. Apply below, or reach out at [email protected] with questions.