Critical Energy
Senior Mechanical Engineer
Hawthorne, CA. Posted 4 days ago
The role
The Senior Mechanical Engineer will support the design, development, testing, and optimization of clean energy power generation systems. This includes work on heat exchangers, turbines, pumps, cooling and lubrication loops, piping, and other balance-of-plant subsystems.
What you will do
- Design structural support hardware for multiple components and sub-systems
- Perform hand calculations using first principles to size components, determine flow rates, and estimate stresses
- Define system requirements, interfaces, and performance targets
- Develop and maintain system-level architecture for mechanical and fluid subsystems
- Perform trade studies to evaluate mechanical configurations and impact on performance and cost
- Integrate components like pumps, piping networks, valves, heat exchangers, and rotating machinery
- Perform finite element analysis (FEA) to evaluate structural integrity
- Identify opportunities to optimize plant layout for efficiency, cost, and maintainability
- Identify, outline, design, and support component-level and sub-system testing
- Assist in the development of test plans and instrumentation strategies
Required qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or related field, or equivalent experience
- 5+ years of proven experience in systems engineering or highly related role
- Solid understanding of first principles of core mechanical engineering principles, including structural and fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and material science
- Experience with a modern CAD package
- Willingness to immediately self-teach proficiency in Siemens NX
- Excellent analytical and critical thinking skills
- Highly self-motivated with effective communication and team-working skills
- Experience with components and sub-systems common to power generation or process plants
- Strong intuition for optimizing the layout of a complex system of machinery
- Experience generating 3D models and managing assemblies in CAD
- Experience with FEA using commercial software
- Experience creating and maintaining comprehensive design documentation
Nice to have
- Experience specifically with power generation or process plant systems
- Proven expertise in Siemens NX / Teamcenter environment
- Experience with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using commercial software
- Hands-on experience with product development
Benefits
- Early stage equity options
- 100% company-covered Platinum or HD/HSA medical
- 100% company-covered dental and vision
- Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
- 401k retirement options
- Daily catered lunch
- Free EV charging
- Several annual social and team building outings
About the company
Critical Energy is a venture-backed cleantech company that designs and manufactures factory-built, modular power plants. The company aims to accelerate the global energy transition through geothermal innovation.