Mechanical Engineer- LA

About the role

You'll own the mechanical side of our products - from concept and CAD through prototyping, qualification, and production transfer. Our systems are safety-critical, field-deployed, and built to survive demanding environments. This is a hands-on role: you'll be in the lab as much as at your desk, and you'll work directly alongside hardware and software engineers.

What you'll do:

• Design and own mechanical assemblies end-to-end: housing, structure, actuation mechanisms, and integration architecture.
• Define the mechanical safety architecture in collaboration with HW and SW leads - interlocks, fail-safe geometry, retention features, and impact behavior.
• Spec materials, tolerances, finishes, and fasteners for operating environments involving temperature, vibration, humidity, and drop loads.
• Build and iterate prototypes in-house (3D print, CNC); hand off polished DFM packages to external machinists and mold vendors.
• Plan and execute mechanical qualification: drop, shock, vibration, environmental, mass-properties, and integration testing.
• Own the BOM, weight budget, and CG budget - track them as the safety-critical numbers they are.
• Collaborate directly with HW and SW engineers on PCB envelope, connector placement, harnessing, and mechanism actuation.

Required:

• 7+ years designing mechanical assemblies that go into the field - UAV payloads, defense, automotive, aerospace, or similar rugged/regulated domains.
• Fluency in a parametric CAD tool (SolidWorks, Fusion 360, Onshape, Creo, or NX).
• Ability to produce manufacturing-ready drawings: GD&T, tolerance stacks, surface finishes, and fits.
• Hands-on with prototyping: FDM/SLA printers, basic machining (mill, lathe), and in-lab build-and-break cycles.
• Strong failure-mode intuition - you've broken things on purpose and know which question to ask next.
• Working English, written and verbal.

Nice to have:

• Experience with energetics, safety-critical arming or actuation mechanisms in defense, aerospace, or industrial applications.
• Familiarity with MIL-STD-810 (environmental), MIL-STD-331, or equivalent civilian qualification standards.
• FEA / structural simulation (Ansys, SolidWorks Simulation, Onshape FEA).
• Injection-mold and metal-casting DFM experience.
• UAV or payload integration experience, including mass/CG sensitivity.

How we work: Short cycles, weekly hardware iterations. You'll sit next to the HW and SW engineers and have a lab with prototyping equipment on-site. We expect you to be opinionated, design for testability from day one, and push back when constraints are wrong.