Principal Thermal-Mechanical Engineer (Germany)

About Us

We are building Physics AI for hardware design. Our software platform helps hardware designers and physics simulation engineers explore, analyze, and optimize hardware systems, leveraging cutting-edge AI to deliver ultrafast, accurate physics intelligence within the realities of engineering design workflows.

By bridging the gap between traditional simulation and machine learning, we are redefining how the world's most advanced semiconductors are designed, verified, built, brought to market and integrated in complex systems.

Role Overview

As part of the Forward Deployment team in Europe, you will play a pivotal role in driving the adoption of Vinci's platform among leading engineering organizations. This is a high-impact leadership position where you will build, mentor, and lead a team of thermal and thermo-mechanical engineers focused on engaging prospective customers and demonstrating the transformative value of Vinci's software.

You and your team will bring deep expertise in thermal and thermo-mechanical simulation, applying hands-on experience to validate real-world customer designs using Vinci's platform. Through these engagements, you will showcase how Vinci enables significant improvements in product design, thermal and mechanical performance, reliability, and time-to-market.

Leveraging strong fundamentals in thermal physics and continuum mechanics, you will guide analyses of complex physical phenomena, including steady-state and transient thermal behavior, linear and nonlinear mechanics, geometric and material nonlinearities, and contact interactions. Your team will evaluate critical factors such as thermal risk, warpage, stress evolution, and reliability across advanced semiconductor devices, electronics packages, and wafer-scale systems.

You will work closely with customer engineering teams to understand their technical challenges, provide expert guidance, and clearly articulate Vinci's capabilities in solving real-world problems. Additionally, you will serve as a key feedback channel to product and engineering teams, translating customer insights into actionable inputs that shape product direction and drive continuous improvement.

This is a remote role, with close collaboration with Sales, Product, and Engineering in Palo Alto, CA, USA. The role includes moderate travel, primarily within continental Europe. Some infrequent intercontinental travel may be required for discussions and collaboration with the US team. This role may require being onsite several days per week in Munich, to collaborate on joint programs with a world-leading research institute.

Responsibilities

• Build, lead, and scale a high-performing team of thermal and thermo-mechanical engineers, setting technical direction, mentoring team members, and driving execution.
• Engage with customer engineering teams during the evaluation phase by supporting simulation setup, running test cases, and interpreting results to demonstrate Vinci's value.
• Collaborate with the sales team to deliver product demonstrations, conduct proof-of-concept evaluations, and participate in in-depth technical discussions with prospective customers.
• Support customer onboarding and deployments by providing technical guidance, training, and troubleshooting throughout the deployment and production phases.
• Identify customer pain points and workflow challenges, and collaborate with the product and engineering teams to improve product capabilities and overall customer experience.
• Deliver technical training sessions and workshops to enable customer teams to effectively adopt and scale Vinci within their engineering workflows.
• Represent Vinci at industry conferences and semiconductor events by delivering live product demonstrations, managing booth activities, and engaging technically with prospective customers and partners.
• Maintain a strong understanding of competitive technologies, industry trends, and market positioning to effectively communicate Vinci's differentiators.

Required Qualifications

• Degree in Mechanical, Electrical, or related engineering field
• 15+ years of hands-on thermal management, mechanical warpage, stress and reliability using commercial software such as Flowthem, Cadence, Ansys, Abaqus, LS Dyna, etc.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills.
• Prior managerial or leadership Experience
• Prior experience in Customer-facing roles
• Strong problem-solving mindset and ability to quickly learn new tools and workflows
• Strong ability to communicate complex results clearly to a mixed audience (technical + business)

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with semiconductor electronics packaging, advanced packaging or foundry (chip warpage, wafer warpage, 2.5D/3D IC, etc.)
• Experience in pre-sales, technical sales, or customer-facing engineering roles
• Ability to rapidly learn and adapt to new physics-based workflows and AI-assisted design tools
• Experience with commercializing technical software-ideally EDA or simulation tools-into semiconductor and electronics companies

Why Join Us

• Be part of a team defining the future of AI in hardware design.
• Work at the intersection of advanced AI, real-world engineering, and customer success.
• Collaborate with world-class engineers and researchers in a fast-moving startup environment.