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Firestorm is building expeditionary defense manufacturing and autonomous systems, focusing on mission-adaptable aerial platforms and deployable microfactories for warfighters. As Mechanical Engineering Manager, you will lead the mechanical engineering team responsible for airframes, structures, mechanisms, and integration hardware across small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) platforms.
Technical Leadership: You will set the technical direction for mechanical engineering across Firestorm's aircraft platforms, owning structures, mechanisms, integration, packaging, and production hardware. You'll establish and maintain design standards, drawing standards, and engineering documentation practices to ensure consistency and quality. You will drive change control discipline, leading the team's participation in change control board (CCB), engineering change request/order (ECR/ECO) workflows, and configuration management using Arena PLM. You'll lead design reviews at all phases (PDR, CDR, structural reviews, production readiness reviews) and provide technical judgment on trade studies and architecture decisions. Partnering with manufacturing and quality teams, you'll ensure producibility, design-for-manufacturability/assembly (DFM/DFA), and manage first-article inspection and non-conformance disposition. You'll represent mechanical engineering in cross-functional integrated product teams (IPTs), customer technical interchanges, and program reviews.
People Leadership: You will build, grow, and develop a multi-disciplinary mechanical engineering team spanning structures, mechanisms, ground support equipment (GSE), and packaging. Responsibilities include hiring across all levels from interns to principal engineers, mentoring early-career engineers through stretch assignments and structured 1:1s, and coaching senior engineers into technical leadership roles. You'll set performance expectations, conduct reviews, and own compensation and leveling decisions. Your focus is creating a team culture that values rigorous engineering, hands-on work, and personal ownership.
Program Execution: You'll plan and resource mechanical engineering work across multiple programs, balancing new development, sustaining engineering, and customer-driven changes. Working with program management, you'll commit to schedules, identify risks, and deliver on milestones. You'll drive productionization and transition from prototype to rate production, and support test and fielding events with on-site presence for structural and integration testing.
Required: Bachelor's in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering (Master's preferred); 10+ years mechanical engineering in aerospace, defense, automotive, or hardware-intensive industries; 5+ years direct people management including hiring and team development; deep technical credibility in structures, mechanisms, composites, GD&T, tolerance analysis, and DFM; hands-on experience from concept through qualification to production; PLM systems experience (Arena, Windchill, Teamcenter); strong cross-functional leadership; U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain security clearance.
Preferred: Experience with sUAS, large aircraft, or SWaP-constrained platforms; scaling hardware teams from prototype to rate production; establishing change control processes; developing early-career engineers into senior roles. Based in San Diego with up to 10% domestic travel for test events.
