Sr. Mechanical Engineer

The Role and Your Impact

We need a Senior Mechanical Engineer who owns major mechanical subsystems on Archimedes end to end and makes them survive the field. That means ruggedization of a fiber laser system against shock, vibration, moisture and environmental extremes, plus the structure, thermal management and precision packaging around the laser head and beam director. You'll work hands on from architecture through bench validation, field correlation and the production handoff to our Detroit manufacturing hub, alongside our Staff and Principal engineers.

What You'll Own

• Mechanical design of major subsystems: laser source and head enclosures, gimbal and beam director structure, mounts
• Survivability to MIL-STD shock, vibration, humidity, dust and austere environments
• Thermal management for high-power laser and electronics packaging
• Precision and optomechanical packaging that holds alignment through shock and thermal cycles
• FEA (static, modal, random vibration, shock response spectrum) and correlation to test
• Test rigs, instrumentation and bench validation you build and run yourself
• DFM and the handoff to manufacturing in Detroit
• Design reviews and raising the bar for the junior ME team

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years in mechanical engineering on ruggedized, field-deployable or high-performance systems
• At least one subsystem you took from prototype to production
• Strong FEA (ANSYS, Nastran, Abaqus or equivalent) and the bench work to back it up
• Hands-on design to MIL-STD-810 or equivalent shock and vibration standards
• Thermal design for high-power systems
• Evidence you learn fast. You got effective in a new domain in months, not years

Additional information

Where you probably come from: Defense hardware, airborne or ground vehicle systems, F1 and high-performance automotive, aerospace, maritime, ruggedized electronics, or directed energy and field-deployed sensor programs. Domain matters less than shipping hardware that had to survive.

We want to talk if: You've owned a system that had to survive shock, vibration and environmental extremes in a tight, deployable package, and you modeled it, built it, instrumented it and correlated it.

Not a fit if: You've only done commercial or consumer product design, your work is simulation-only with no bench validation, or you've spent years on one narrow subcomponent without seeing the system around it.

Nice to Haves

• Laser, directed energy or high-power hardware
• Optical bench or precision instrument ruggedization
• MIL-STD-461 EMI/EMC awareness for mechanical integration
• Vehicle-mounted systems
• Manufacturing ramp experience

Additional information

Education: BS or MS in Mechanical, Aerospace or related field. What you've built matters more than where you went to school.

How You Operate

• Extreme bias for action. You'd rather build a prototype tomorrow than model it for a month
• You characterize your own systems before the field does
• Comfortable with ambiguity and fast iteration in a startup environment
• You debug from first principles, not intuition alone
• Clear communicator across mechanical, electrical, optical, and software teams
• Self directed. You identify what needs to happen next and do it without being told

How We Work

Core hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 6. When we're sprinting toward a demo or field test, the team ramps up - nights, weekends, whatever it takes to ship. When the sprint lands, we ramp down. We don't manufacture intensity for show.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity
• United Health Care medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Flexible 18 days PTO plus 5 sick days
• Travel to field test events and range days
• Covered daily lunches and office snacks and drinks
• E-bike and scooter stipend up to $500
• Direct access to leadership and real ownership over your work

Export Control Notice

This role requires access to export-controlled information or items that require U.S. Person status. 1324b(a)(3).