The role
What you'll do
- The Lead Mechanical Engineer will own the structural and mechanical design of major aircraft assemblies from concept through flight testing.
- This role is responsible for setting technical direction, leading design reviews, managing subsystem interfaces, and supporting other mechanical engineers. It is a hands-on engineering position that requires detailed involvement in CAD, analysis, manufacturing, assembly, and testing.
- Lead the design of primary aircraft structures, mechanisms, and major airframe assemblies
- Develop composite and metallic structures, joints, interfaces, and mounting systems
- Define structural load paths, design requirements, margins, and validation methods
- Perform and review hand calculations and finite element analysis
- Evaluate strength, stiffness, buckling, fatigue, vibration, and composite failure modes
- Lead preliminary and critical design reviews
- Own CAD assemblies, production drawings, bills of materials, tolerances, and design releases
- Manage mechanical interfaces between the airframe, propulsion, avionics, flight controls, landing systems, and other subsystems
- Design aircraft mechanisms, including control surfaces, doors, landing gear, actuation systems, and deployable systems
- Work with manufacturing to develop tooling, assembly processes, inspection methods, and repair procedures
- Plan and support component, structural, subsystem, and vehicle-level testing
- Investigate failures, determine root causes, and implement corrective actions
- Mentor mechanical engineers and review their design and analysis work
- Support aircraft assembly, integration, ground testing, and flight testing
The bar
What you'll bring
- Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field
- 7 or more years of relevant mechanical, structural, or aerospace engineering experience
- Experience designing primary aircraft structures or large composite airframes
- Experience with bonded composite structures, sandwich panels, bonded inserts, and hybrid composite-metallic assemblies
- Experience with aircraft mechanisms, actuation systems, control surfaces, doors, landing gear, or deployable systems
- Knowledge of composite failure criteria, buckling, fatigue, vibration, modal analysis, or damage tolerance
- Experience taking safety-critical hardware from concept through manufacturing and testing
- Strong proficiency with CAD software such as Fusion, SolidWorks, CATIA, NX, or Creo
- Strong proficiency with finite element analysis tools such as ANSYS, Nastran, Abaqus, Fusion Simulation, or similar
- Ability to verify analysis using hand calculations and first-principles methods
- Strong understanding of structural mechanics, load paths, joint design, material behavior, and mechanical failure modes
- Experience applying GD&T and mechanical tolerancing to production drawings
- Experience designing for manufacturing, assembly, inspection, maintenance, and repair
- Experience leading technical reviews and making design decisions across multiple engineering teams
- Comfortable working directly with aircraft hardware, prototypes, test fixtures, and shop tools
- Experience designing structures for marine environments
- Experience developing structural test plans, fixtures, instrumentation, and acceptance criteria
- Familiarity with FAA certification, military airworthiness, or experimental flight-test programs
- Proficiency with MATLAB or Python for engineering analysis
- Experience with product lifecycle management and configuration control systems
- Candidates who are not yet qualified for a Lead position may apply to our Mechanical Engineer openings.
Additional notes
Other
About Poseidon Aerospace:
Poseidon Aerospace is reimagining how the world moves goods. We build and operate full-size autonomous cargo aircraft - capable of carrying two tons of payload over a thousand nautical miles. From remote communities to contested logistics operations, our platforms unlock a new cost curve for air freight, making it faster, cheaper, and accessible anywhere it's needed. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with locations in Washington DC, Oregon, and Maine; we're building something consequential.
What you get from us
Competitive salary and meaningful early-stage equity
Relocation support if applicable
Employee Health Benefit Plans
6% Retirement matching
Flexible PTO
Free lunches, snacks, and a stocked fridge at our offices
AI tools and subscriptions