Mechanical Designer - Airborne

The role

This person will create and maintain detailed 3D CAD mechanical designs for airborne optomechanical and optoelectrical payload hardware. They will support hardware from early packaging through fabrication, assembly, integration, and flight testing.

What you will do

• Create and maintain detailed 3D CAD mechanical designs, assemblies, drawings, and bills of material
• Translate system, optical, electrical, thermal, and structural constraints into practical packaging solutions
• Perform tolerance and basic thermal and structural analyses
• Select materials and ensure mechanical designs meet performance and reliability requirements
• Work with optical engineers to translate system-level optical requirements into mechanical designs
• Collaborate with manufacturing, supply chain, and suppliers to optimize designs for manufacturability and cost
• Support prototype builds, fit checks, integration, metrology, test-fixture development, and hardware troubleshooting
• Maintain configuration discipline and incorporate lessons from fabrication, test, and flight operations into design updates

Required qualifications

• Degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics and at least five years of relevant experience, or an advanced degree in a related field and at least three years of experience
• Strong proficiency with NX or an equivalent CAD tool
• Deep understanding of precision mechanical design, ASME Y14.5-2018 GD&T, tolerance stack-ups, materials, and manufacturing processes
• Experience designing optical-system components such as lenses, lasers, sensors, and imaging assemblies
• Ability to collaborate with optical, electrical, structural, thermal, and systems engineers
• Ability to communicate technical results to internal and external technical and nontechnical audiences
• Hands-on experience with prototyping, metrology, testing, and verification of optomechanical assemblies for harsh environments
• Experience with thermal management, material selection, adhesives, and mounting techniques

Nice to have

• Experience with airborne, spaceborne, aerospace, precision-instrument, robotics, or other ruggedized and mass- and volume-constrained hardware
• Work in regulated aerospace or defense environments
• Experience packaging optical and electronic components with tight alignment or environmental requirements
• Familiarity with cleanroom practices and optical assembly techniques
• Familiarity with rapid prototyping and low-volume production environments
• Familiarity with hand and light power tools
• Familiarity with finite-element analysis for modal, shock, and random-vibration loads
• Ansys Workbench experience

Benefits

• Competitive compensation based on experience
• Early-stage equity package
• 100% employer-paid health, dental, and vision coverage
• Opportunity to work on novel sensing, data, and AI systems

Before you apply

• Applicants must be a U.S. citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident (green card holder), or eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State

About the company

Matter is building the future of vision AI by pairing a sensor that sees molecular chemistry, temperature, and 3D shape with a Large World Model. The team has delivered technologies to Mars for NASA/JPL and designed advanced sensors for U.S. Defense.