Senior Mechanical Engineer

Senior Mechanical Engineer

Charlottesville, VA | Full-Time | Exempt

Hiring Range: $110,000 - $155,000 annually

This hiring range represents the anticipated starting salary for this position. Individual offers are determined based on experience, qualifications, technical expertise, and internal equity.

Laser Thermal is pioneering the future of thermal metrology. We design and build advanced instruments that deliver fast, accurate thermal property measurements for the most demanding materials challenges, across semiconductors, aerospace, energy, and beyond.

Born from academic research and built for real-world impact, we combine optical innovation with scalable engineering to empower R&D teams and production environments alike. Our team thrives on hands-on problem-solving, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and a shared belief that better data drives better design.

If you're passionate about building tools that make a measurable difference, you’ll find a home here.

Visit our website to learn more about our solutions.

As Laser Thermal continues to expand our product portfolio and advance the capabilities of our flagship FASTR platform, we are seeking an experienced Senior Mechanical Engineer to join our multidisciplinary engineering team. In this role, you will independently lead complex mechanical design efforts while collaborating with fellow senior engineers, scientists, software engineers, electrical engineers, and manufacturing personnel to develop the next generation of thermal metrology instrumentation.

This is a hands-on engineering role for someone who enjoys solving challenging technical problems and seeing designs through every stage of the product lifecycle—from concept and prototyping to manufacturing, testing, and continuous product improvement. You will contribute to the evolution of existing products while helping develop innovative technologies that enable researchers and manufacturers to better understand the thermal properties of advanced materials.

As a senior individual contributor, you will provide technical expertise across multiple engineering disciplines, working closely with cross-functional teams to develop reliable, manufacturable, and high-performing electromechanical systems. You will also share your experience through design reviews, technical collaboration, and informal mentoring while continuing to grow alongside a talented team of engineers.

Because we are a growing company, you’ll have the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on our products, engineering processes, and customer experience. If you enjoy building precision scientific instrumentation, working across disciplines, and taking ownership of challenging engineering problems, we’d love to hear from you.

• Independently lead the design, development, and continuous improvement of complex mechanical systems supporting the FASTR product line and future product development initiatives.
• Design precision mechanical components, assemblies, and electromechanical systems that balance performance, manufacturability, reliability, serviceability, and cost.
• Create, maintain, and manage complex parts, assemblies, subassemblies, drawings, and engineering documentation using sound configuration and revision management practices.
• Design sheet metal, machined, fabricated, and custom mechanical components for low-volume manufacturing and future production scalability.
• Collaborate with research scientists, product managers, electrical engineers, software engineers, manufacturing technicians, and fellow mechanical engineers to develop integrated product solutions.
• Work closely with fabrication partners and suppliers, including vendors such as Send Cut Send  and Protocase, to optimize component designs and manufacturing processes.
• Build, assemble, test, troubleshoot, and validate prototypes and production systems, identifying opportunities to improve performance, reliability, and manufacturability.
• Design, manufacture, and troubleshoot cable assemblies, including crimping, soldering, connectorization, and electrical integration.
• Interpret electrical schematics and…