Mechanical Engineer - Airframes & Mechanisms

About the role

As a Mechanical Engineer for Airframes and Mechanisms
, you will own the mechanical architecture, design, build, and flight validation of new airframes and mechanical systems for our high-performance UAS intercept platforms.

You will turn evolving mission requirements and vehicle concepts into real hardware: compact mechanisms, structural load paths, subsystem packaging, mechanical interfaces, fixtures, and manufacturable airframes that survive field handling, vibration, launch, flight loads, and repeated iteration.

This role is for an incredibly first-principles engineer who is equal parts mechanisms designer and hands‑on builder. You move quickly across the full loop, from trade study to design, build, test, and validation, and you upgrade your first-principles models the moment the data demands more fidelity.

You make hard structural and packaging trades, create elegant solutions under severe constraints, and personally build and test the hardware. You thrive in early ambiguity, cutting through the noise to find the few constraints that actually matter, and you prioritize physical reality over opinion
.

Above all, you have a track record of novel mechanical system design
. You have personally taken complex physical systems from concept through CAD, prototyping, test, failure analysis, and real‑world validation. Ideally, you spend your free time building drones, airplanes, robots, mechanisms, or strange machines because you cannot help yourself.

Passion coupled with engineering mastery are the two most important things we are looking for.

You will spearhead airframe and mechanisms development, working with the aerodynamics, rotorcraft, GNC, perception, electrical, and manufacturing teams to integrate their subsystems into coherent, rugged, flight‑proven vehicles.

Portfolio Strongly Encouraged:
We strongly favor candidates who can show a portfolio of personally executed mechanical design and build work. Show us what you have designed, built, tested, broken, and improved (CAD, mechanisms, prototypes, airframes, robots, personal projects, test hardware, or other complex physical systems).

You will own mechanical architecture for new airframes and vehicle configurations, from clean‑sheet layout and first‑principles trades through CAD, prototyping, bench test, flight test, and iteration. You will work across the aerodynamics, rotorcraft, GNC, perception, electrical, and manufacturing teams, but the mechanical architecture, airframe structures, mechanisms, and packaging trades are yours to drive.

You will focus on problems in all of the following areas:

• Airframe & Mechanical Architecture: Own mechanical architecture for new airframes and vehicle configurations, from clean‑sheet layout and first‑principles trades through CAD, prototyping, bench test, flight test, and iteration.
• Mechanisms Design: Design compact, rugged airframe structures and mechanisms, including linkages, hinges, latches, retention features, printed flexures, and deployables
  , that survive real handling, transport, vibration, launch, and flight loads.
• Subsystem Packaging: Package motors, propellers, batteries, avionics, sensors, wiring, compute, and thermal paths under aggressive size, weight, and performance constraints.
• Structural Analysis & Failure Modes: Perform FEA
  , hand calculations, load‑path development, tolerance stackups, and failure‑mode analysis to ensure hardware survives real‑world loads.
• CAD, Fixtures & Test Articles: Produce high-quality CAD, drawings, mechanisms, fixtures, and test articles that can be rapidly manufactured, assembled, inspected, and iterated.
• Manufacturable Hardware Design: Translate mechanical and performance targets into manufacturable hardware, accounting for materials, fabrication methods, assembly sequence, and scale‑up.
• Rapid Prototyping & Test: Prototype quickly, test aggressively, break hardware, diagnose failures, and turn real data into the next design revision.
• Subsystem Integration: Integrate subsystems from the aerodynamics, rotorcraft, GNC, perception, electrical, and manufacturing teams into robust, serviceable vehicles.

• Complex Mechanical System…