Product Design Engineer, Thermals

<p><strong>About Hark</strong></p> <p>Hark is an artificial intelligence company building advanced, personalized intelligence. One that is proactive, multimodal, and capable of interacting with the world through speech, text, vision, and persistent memory.</p> <p>We're pairing that intelligence with next-generation hardware to create a universal interface between humans and machines. While today's AI largely operates through chat boxes and decade-old devices, Hark is focused on what comes next: agentic systems that interact naturally with people and the real world.</p> <p>To get there, we're developing multimodal models and next-generation AI hardware together - designed from the ground up as a single, unified interface for a new era of intelligent systems.</p> <p><strong>About the Role&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>You’ll drive the system-wide thermal architecture for our AI-centric consumer devices, from early concepts through detailed architecture and production validation.&nbsp; Balance performance, battery life, cost, and user comfort.&nbsp; Work hands-on across simulation, prototyping, and test to enable informed architecture analysis, proactively highlighting tradeoffs and opportunities.&nbsp; Collaborate closely with industrial design, mechanical, electrical, and software teams to converge holistic thermal solutions.</p> <p><strong>Responsibilities</strong></p> <ul> <li>Define and own the thermal architecture from early architecture &amp; NPI through production, including foundational system architecture simulation &amp; analysis, material selection, thermal solution design, and cost optimization.</li> <li>Translate product use cases and real-world usage profiles into thermal loading scenarios that drive early design iteration</li> <li>Conduct detailed thermal analysis at variable fidelity levels as needed - analytic analysis for team directional analysis, coarse analysis for quick iteration of parallel ideas, and detailed analysis for high fidelity studies.</li> <li>Design and build custom thermal test infrastructure and measurement methodologies tailored to each product program</li> <li>Partner cross-functionally to ensure thermal constraints are integrated into system-level decisions around power budgets, enclosure design, and silicon selection</li> </ul> <p><strong>Requirements</strong></p> <ul> <li>8+ years in thermal engineering with multiple shipped battery-powered consumer electronics</li> <li>Expert-level experience with thermal simulation tools (Icepak, Fluent, Ansys, or similar) and real world correlation</li> <li>Deep experience with thermal module technologies — heat pipes, vapor chambers, TIMs, graphite spreaders — and vendor evaluation at scale</li> <li>Experience in system-level power/thermal co-optimization with software or firmware teams</li> <li>Proven ability to build custom thermal test setups and drive data-backed architecture decisions during early NPI phases</li> <li>Strong cross-functional collaboration skills — translating thermal trade-offs into language that all engineering and design teams can act on</li> </ul> <p><strong>Bonus Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li>Familiarity with regulatory and safety thermal compliance (UL, IEC) for consumer products</li> <li>Experience building internal thermal modeling tools, dashboards, or automated test frameworks</li> </ul> <p><strong>Compensation</strong></p> <p>The pay offered for this position may vary based on several individual factors, including job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package may also include additional components/benefits depending on the specific role. This information will be shared if an employment offer is extended.</p>