Hardware Development Engineer

As an Hardware Development Engineer, you will play a crucial role in the NI ON PSE HW&TE GX Syst HW & CentEng 5 (L06) department. Your primary focus will be on thermal design, simulation, and optimization for a range of high-speed pluggable transceivers, ensuring they meet power, temperature, and reliability requirements. You will collaborate with various teams and drive thermal architecture decisions throughout the product development lifecycle.
NILightpath

• Own thermal design, simulation, and optimization for OSFP, OSFP-XD, QSFP-DD, QSFP112, QSFP56, CFP, and future form factors.
• Develop thermal solutions for modules supporting 25G to 1.6T applications, ensuring compliance with specifications.
• Collaborate with mechanical, signal integrity, optics, electronics, manufacturing, and reliability teams.
• Select and optimize thermal solutions such as heat spreaders, sinks, vapor chambers, and heat pipes.
• Understand and manage module-to-cage thermal interfaces and host-system cooling interactions.
• Perform thermal simulations using FloTHERM and other thermal analysis tools and optimize airflow paths, pressure drops, and component temperatures.
• Correlate simulation results with lab measurements and drive design improvements.
• Conduct thermal validation and testing, including thermal characterization, airflow analysis, and power dissipation testing.

• B.E./B.Tech/M.E./M.Tech in Mechanical, Thermal, Aerospace Engineering, or related field.
• 3+ years of electronics cooling and thermal engineering experience.
• 2+ years of thermal design for pluggable optical modules (OSFP, QSFP-DD, CFP, SFP family).
• Strong understanding of thermal challenges in DSP/ASIC cooling, optical engines, and laser devices.
• Experience with FloTHERM and other thermal tools for thermal simulations and modeling.
• Ability to correlate simulation results with lab measurements and drive design improvements.
• Hands-on experience with thermal validation for optical transceivers or compact networking products.
• Proficiency in thermal validation tools and techniques, including thermocouples and IR imaging.
• Strong analytical skills, methodical approach, and excellent technical reporting abilities.