Senior Manager, Mechanical Engineering - Drone

The role

You will lead and grow a team responsible for the mechanical design of drone platforms. You will own the mechanical engineering roadmap and work through the full product design lifecycle from concept to production.

What you will do

• Build and lead a team of mechanical engineers for drone platform components
• Set technical direction on weight, strength, aerodynamics, flight time, and payload capacity
• Guide integration of propulsion, batteries, avionics, and payloads into the airframe
• Oversee structural, thermal, and vibration analysis
• Drive a culture of rapid prototyping and support flight testing and field operations
• Lead failure and crash investigations and root cause analysis
• Own design, analysis, and validation quality
• Champion design for manufacturability, repairability, and field serviceability
• Hire, mentor, and grow mechanical engineers and manage performance
• Partner cross-functionally with autonomy, avionics, electrical, software, and flight test leaders

Required qualifications

• BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field
• 12+ years of experience designing hardware and shipping products
• 7+ years of experience leading and managing mechanical engineering teams
• Hands-on experience designing flight vehicles or flight-critical structures
• Strong understanding of weight, structures, aerodynamic loads, stability, and propulsion integration
• Experience designing lightweight structures including composites, carbon fiber, and aerospace-grade metals
• Experience with design for manufacturing across CNC machining, composite layup, sheet metal, and additive manufacturing
• Proficiency in CAD

Nice to have

• SolidWorks preferred
• Experience supporting flight test and field operations
• Experience designing, drawing, and prototyping custom cable harnesses
• Demonstrated experience in FEA/CAE (structural, thermal, vibration, and shock)
• Hands-on experience shipping high-complexity hardware in early-stage startup and mass-production environments

About the company

Applied Intuition, Inc. is a Silicon Valley company creating digital infrastructure for physical AI. It services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries.