Full-Time
Thermal Engineer
Starcloud
11-50 employees
Orbital data centers powering AI workloads
No salary listed
No H1B Sponsorship
Redmond, WA, USA
In Person
US Citizenship Required
 Mechanical Engineering (1) |
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- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent experience.
- Good competency with Thermal Desktop and Ansys
- 5+ years of experience with active thermal control, ideally in the space domain, delivering solutions optimized for mass, cost, reliability, performance, and manufacturability.
- Willingness to work extended hours and weekends as necessary to support critical project milestones.
- Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or eligible for authorization under U.S. export regulations.
- Conduct preliminary and detailed thermal analysis on spacecraft and subsystems for operational conditions in orbit. These subsystems include cold plates, coolant loops, pumps, and very large lightweight deployable radiators, working closely with the mechanical and mechanisms teams.
- Design, analyze, and optimize these thermal control systems, balancing performance, mass, cost, and reliability.
- Provide thermal analysis and recommendations during architectural trades, supporting system architects and subsystem leads.
- Conduct rapid prototyping and testing of engineering models for iterative design feedback.
- Take responsibility for building FM thermal hardware
- Define, lead, and execute thermal cycling and thermal vacuum tests for development and qualification at subsystem and spacecraft levels.
- Proven track record in spacecraft thermal design, delivering optimized solutions for mass, cost, reliability, performance, and manufacturability.
- Experience developing hardware and spacecraft that have successfully operated in space.
- Experience interpreting and correlating data from on-orbit telemetry.
Starcloud builds megawatt-scale data centers in low Earth orbit and leases GPU compute, storage, and data processing capacity to customers. Satellites carry large GPU clusters and storage, with power from onboard solar panels and cooling in vacuum; customers access resources over the network and pay by usage. Unlike terrestrial cloud providers, Starcloud avoids land, water, and permitting bottlenecks by operating in orbit, and benefits from space-based energy and cooling to reduce costs and emissions. Its goal is to extend digital compute beyond Earth’s surface, enabling scalable, sustainable AI workloads through orbital data centers.
Company Size
11-50
Company Stage
Series A
Total Funding
$194M
Headquarters
Redmond, Washington
Founded
2024
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Orbit provides continuous solar power and passive radiative cooling, sharply lowering operating costs.
- The SpaceX Starlink Mini Laser deal improves intersatellite connectivity across more than 25 satellites.
- A $170 million Series A at a $1.1 billion valuation signals strong investor confidence.
What critics are saying
- FCC approval for an 88,000-satellite constellation can delay or block Starcloud's scaling plan.
- In-orbit hardware failures can damage customer trust, fundraising momentum, and launch cadence.
- Google Project Suncatcher directly validates the same thesis with far greater capital and distribution.
What makes Starcloud unique
- Founded in January 2024, Starcloud builds megawatt-scale orbital data centers in Redmond, Washington.
- Its first satellite launched with an NVIDIA H100, validating high-end GPU compute in orbit.
- Starcloud targets other satellites first, then broader AI workloads, reducing early market adoption risk.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Life Insurance
Disability Insurance
401(k) Retirement Plan
401(k) Company Match
Paid Vacation
Paid Sick Leave
Paid Parental Leave
Stock Options
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 0%1 year growth
↓ -4%2 year growth
↓ -14%Orbital, a startup building space-based AI data centres, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz's a16z Speedrun. The company plans to launch its first test mission, Orbital-1, in April 2027 to demonstrate proof-of-concept for orbital AI infrastructure. Orbital aims to address AI's energy crisis by deploying satellites in sun-synchronous orbits 1,200 miles above Earth, running entirely on continuous solar power whilst using radiative cooling to dissipate heat. Each satellite will house Nvidia-powered GPU clusters designed for AI inference workloads, with latency comparable to terrestrial fibre connections at 20 to 40 milliseconds. The company is opening Factory-1, a research facility in Los Angeles, to manufacture its compute satellites. Rather than attempting repairs in orbit, Orbital will replace satellites at end-of-life with controlled deorbit and burn-up on reentry.
Orbital compute infrastructure startup Starcloud has raised $170 million at a $1.1 billion valuation, as companies including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin race to move power-hungry AI data centers off-planet.
Starcloud has raised $170 million to develop its next-generation spacecraft, achieving a valuation of $1.1 billion and unicorn status. The funding will accelerate the company's plans to deploy an 88,000-strong orbital data centre network, pending regulatory approval.
Starcloud, a "data center in space" firm, has secured investment from In-Q-Tel, a venture firm funded by the CIA. This partnership aims to accelerate Starcloud's development of orbital data centers, offering high-performance AI compute capabilities for satellites. Founded as Lumen Orbit, Starcloud plans to deploy LEO satellites using 24/7 solar power. The company has raised over $20 million, with investors like Y Combinator and Sequoia. The investment size from In-Q-Tel remains undisclosed.
Lumen Orbit has rebranded as Starcloud and secured an additional $10M in funding for its space-based data centers, bringing its total seed funding to $21M. The Redmond, Wash.-based startup, which emerged from Y Combinator, plans to launch a 60-kg demonstrator satellite with NVIDIA GPUs on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The funding will support the development of megawatt-scale computer servers in orbit, reducing the need for terrestrial data centers.