Staff Mechanical Engineer

The role

You will lead the design and integration of air-launched and ground-launched aerospace vehicles and hardware. This includes owning mechanical design for airframes, control surfaces, and structures from concept through flight test and production.

What you will do

• Perform hands-on mechanical design and integration of flight-vehicle structures and mechanical hardware
• Own the mechanical design and integration of defined subsystems, product areas, or major assemblies
• Perform trade studies and recommend path forward
• Develop and maintain 3D CAD models, assemblies, detailed drawings, assembly and installation documentation, and interface control documents
• Develop mechanical designs subject to structural, thermal, environmental, manufacturability, installation, and operational requirements
• Perform first-order structural and thermal analyses, hand calculations, requirements analysis, and design verification activities
• Lead design review on owned design
• Work collaboratively with various engineering and manufacturing functions to resolve integration challenges
• Support system integration, qualification, and flight testing
• Support prototype fabrication, assembly, transition to production, configuration control, fielding, and sustainment

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related discipline
• 7+ years of progressively responsible experience in mechanical design and integration of airframes, flight vehicles, structural assemblies, or related aerospace hardware
• Demonstrated experience designing airframes, control surfaces, and structural assemblies
• Strong proficiency with mechanical CAD tools (SolidWorks, CATIA, NX, or equivalent), including production-ready drawings with GD&T, tolerance analysis, and configuration-controlled documentation
• Strong understanding of structural load paths, joints, fasteners, inserts, bearings, hinges, and bonded joints
• Experience designing or integrating metallic or composite structures subject to vibration, shock, thermal, aerodynamic, and other environmental requirements, including structural analysis using hand c
• Experience applying military specifications and applicable aerospace, defense, and airworthiness standards
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

Nice to have

• Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field
• Experience with composite materials, bonded joints, and composite manufacturing processes
• Experience with advanced structural analysis methods using commercial FEA/multiphysics tools
• Experience with airframe manufacturing processes, including machining, sheet metal, forming, welding, additive manufacturing, or assembly
• Experience supporting structural or flight testing, including instrumentation, strain-gage testing, environmental qualification, or flight-test range operations
• Experience with deployment, release, or separation mechanisms for air- or ground-launched vehicles
• Experience integrating avionics, sensors, payloads, propulsion systems, or other mission equipment into flight vehicles
• Experience with wire-harness routing and connector selection and integration in space-constrained or separation-critical assemblies

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
• 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay)
• FSA
• HSA
• life insurance
• Free daily lunch
• No meeting Fridays
• unlimited PTO
• casual dress code
• pre-IPO stock option grants
• relocation assistance

Before you apply

• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

About the company

CHAOS Industries is a modern defense company with a multi-product portfolio powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™). Founded in 2022, the company is headquartered in Los Angeles.