Mechanical Engineer San Bruno, California,

Chariot Defense is a defense technology company that designs and manufactures a family of power products for the U.S. military and its allies. We believe that credible deterrence of armed conflict and winning if deterrence fails, requires more than just the best drones, sensors, weapons, electronic warfare systems, and command & control capabilities. Those critical components will require sustained electric power in austere and resource‑constrained environments.

Moreover, military units must be able to turn off the trucks and generators that generate this power to hide and survive. In other words, power generation must be decoupled from power consumption. Chariot Defense’s products enable exactly this capability, allowing U.S. and allied militaries to be more lethal and survivable. We hope you will join us on this mission.

Chariot Defense is seeking a highly motivated and skilled Mechanical Engineer to join our engineering team, reporting to the Powertrain Lead Engineer. In this role, you will conceptualize, design, develop, and test advanced mechanical and power electronic systems, including fully integrated vehicle platforms. You will work across multidisciplinary engineering and design teams to ensure our systems meet stringent MIL‑STD performance, endurance and reliability, and security requirements for deployment in demanding environments, performing critical missions.

• Design Ownership: Own hardware design from initial requirements to concept and prototyping to series production, and beyond, in service and field deployment, as an end‑to‑end owner of subsystems.
• Integrated Systems: Develop mechanical designs that involve the complex and multivariable mechanical integration of next‑gen energy storage, advanced material types, complex thermal solutions, power electronic hardware, dense PCBAs, and efficient harnessing for the tightest packaged, most efficient, and highest performing end‑product.
• Rapid Iteration: Prototype rapidly to find issues fast, debug, iterate, and develop a final, field‑deployable product on compressed timelines, closely managing risk vs. reward, effort vs. return, and balancing schedules and budget with capability and performance.
• Design for Mass Manufacturing: Design mechanical, thermal, electro‑mechanical components and assemblies, and integrated power systems, for volume manufacturing from the get‑go.
• Direct Customer Engagement: Support critical customer‑facing hardware demonstrations, from time to time, and use these interactions to better understand the customers’ requirements and application needs.

• Top‑notch engineering intuition and first‑principles thinking toward designing complex products that function seamlessly for your customer, taking both an engineering/technical and product/customer approach, to strike the optimal balance.
• Able to independently identify critical information or priority gaps and apply effort toward closing those gaps.
• Undaunted by imperfect, incomplete or absent datasets or information, and capable of making sound, comprehensive, and swift first‑principled decisions to achieve a product end‑state that meets and/or exceeds the need of the hour.
• Not satisfied by superficial explanations of a problem or “band‑aid engineering”; seeks persistently to find the specific root cause through data‑driven methods, and resolve failures or recurring issues, so they can be mitigated to prevent future similar instances.
• Gratified by helping your peers succeed, building a robust team culture, and propagating deep camaraderie among your peers; seeks to break down information silos by collaborating rigorously with others to solve problems, share knowledge, and provide input.

• BS or MS in Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent work experience.
• Experience in an immersive system design project or research study/thesis, in collegiate project teams (e.g.: SAE, FSAE, BAJA, others), other extracurricular participation, or professional settings.
• A minimum of 2+ years of experience in a technical engineering, design, or product role in a professional setting.
• Proven 3D CAD skills (any platform,…