Senior Staff Powertrain Thermal System Modeling Engineer

At Ford Motor Company, we believe freedom of movement drives human progress. We also believe in providing you with the freedom to define and realize your dreams! With our incredible plans for the future of mobility, we have a wide variety of opportunities for you to accelerate your career potential as you help us define tomorrow’s transportation.

Electric Vehicle Digital Design (EVDD) is responsible for developing the key technologies and capabilities – such as EV platforms, batteries, e-motors, inverters, charging and recycling – to create ground-up breakthrough electric vehicles. By joining the best software, engineering, design and UX talent, you will be a part of creating new technologies and concepts that can be applied across the Ford enterprise. Being on the EVDD team means building the future as Ford’s center of innovation and growth through electric and connected vehicles and services.

The Senior Staff Powertrain Thermal System Modeling Engineer will be responsible for developing an integrated powertrain thermal model to optimize Ford’s electric powertrains. You will conceptualize and own detailed parametric thermal models of powertrain subsystems used to optimize Ford’s next generation of electric powertrain architectures. You will perform drivetrain system simulation studies, interpret the results, and select optimal tradeoffs between mass, loss, and cost based on vehicle level performance metrics. This cross functional role will work closely with component design engineers to understand their requirements and constraints, and provide quantitively guidance to define thermal control strategies and cooling architectures for the next generation of efficient, cost-effective powertrain platforms at Ford.

What you’ll be able to do:

• Lead the development of a parametric, integrated drivetrain (motor/inverter/gearbox) thermal system simulation model for use within a larger drivetrain optimization tool
• Develop and automate the creation of motor and inverter thermal state space models using a combination of model order reduction from finite-element simulations, analytical calculations, and experimental results
• Collaborate with component leads to model effective heat transfer coefficients from CFD simulations and experiments
• Combine numerical and physical test data to correlate and improve motor and inverter thermal models using various data fitting and optimization techniques
• Perform and analyze large scale drive cycle simulations to identify requirements that are actively constraining thermal system design and suggest changes that improve performance and reduce cost while meeting system level requirements
• Develop and automate methods for transforming detailed powertrain thermal models into simplified models suitable for integration within a larger vehicle thermal system model
• Collaborate with the drivetrain and vehicle level thermal teams to define thermal control strategies that minimize cost and total power consumption at the drivetrain and vehicle level
• Maintain documentation and write unit tests to guarantee correct functionality of custom software tools

The minimum requirements we seek: 

• B.S. or M.S. degree in mechanical/aerospace/thermal engineering, control systems, or mathematics or equivalent
• Strong linear systems and numerical methods background
• Experience with software development in MATLAB or a similar technical computing language (Python, Julia, C++)
• Experience with model order reduction and system identification techniques applied to large and data sets
• Experience using heat transfer correlations and thermal resistance/mass calculations to derive thermal network models of systems with heterogenous material properties
• Experience defining test procedures to corelate, validate, and improve heat exchanger models

Preferred Requirements: 

• M.S or PhD in mechanical/aerospace/thermal engineering, control systems, or mathematics
• Experience with object-oriented software development in MATLAB or a similar technical computing language (Python, Julia, C++)
• Experience using numerical methods, machine learning, and optimization techniques (least squares, LASSO, etc.) to perform model selection and identification
• Familiarity using finite-element tools to run conductive, convective, and conjugate heat transfer simulations
• Familiarity with thermal measurement and instrumentation techniques
• Familiarity with high-dimensional multi-objective optimization algorithms 

What you’ll receive in return:

As part of the Ford family, you’ll enjoy excellent compensation and a comprehensive benefits package that includes generous PTO, retirement, savings and stock investment plans, incentive compensation and much more. You’ll also experience exciting opportunities for professional and personal growth and recognition.

If you have what it takes to help us redefine the future of mobility, we would love to have you join us.

Candidates for positions with Ford Motor Company must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire. Visa sponsorship is available for this position.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to a culturally diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status or protected veteran status.

For information on Ford's salary and benefits, please visit: https://corporate.ford.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en-us/documents/careers/2024-benefits-and-comp-LL5-sal-plan-1.pdf