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Salary: USD 140,000 - 180,000 / annual
Mach Industries, founded in 2023, is a rapidly growing defense technology company with ~350 employees focused on developing next-generation autonomous defense platforms. The company operates with startup agility while addressing national security challenges through scalable, decentralized defense systems.
You will own structural sizing and optimization of primary and secondary structures across next-generation aerospace platforms, using both first-order hand calculations and finite element analysis (FEA). Your core responsibilities include:
• Building structural finite element models and calculating margins of safety for lightweight, high-performance airframe structures including metallics, composites, bonded joints, and bolted joints
• Supporting design-analysis cycles in close collaboration with designers, loads, dynamics, and flight sciences teams
• Driving trade studies at vehicle, subassembly, and component levels, balancing mass, strength, stiffness, performance, and manufacturability at scale
• Owning vehicle structural sizing from preliminary architecture through detailed design, including major load-bearing structures, skins, spars, ribs, equipment mounts, and structural interfaces
• Working alongside test and loads teams to validate designs and correlate models via structural or dynamic testing
• Writing analytic reports and trade studies for presentation to peers and leadership
• Generating sizing documentation, analysis reports, structural margins, engineering drawings, and supporting technical documentation for design reviews and hardware release
• Acting as 'analysis' signoff reviewer for engineering data package releases across the program
• Establishing structural design best practices, mentoring other engineers, and accelerating hardware development
• Supporting critical development and test milestones, including occasional extended hours and weekends as needed
You will work closely with manufacturing, test, loads, and other engineering teams to develop practical, buildable structural solutions and support structural testing, design reviews, prototype builds, and rapid design iterations.
REQUIREMENTS:
• Bachelor's degree or higher in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related discipline
• 5+ years of experience in aerospace structural analysis and optimization for strength and stiffness, including metallics, composites, and bolted/bonded joints
• Strong understanding of structural mechanics, load paths, free-body diagrams, strength, stiffness, stability, and structural sizing
• Proficiency with CAD and structural analysis tools such as NX, FEMAP, Nastran, ANSYS, Abaqus, or equivalent to perform end-to-end structural analysis
• Demonstrated ownership of structural hardware from initial concept through analysis, detailed design, manufacturing, and test
• ITAR eligibility: Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. lawful permanent resident, Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
• Experience developing and maintaining vehicle-level global finite element models (GFEMs) and using them to support structural design and load development
• Experience with aircraft/UAV structures such as fuselages, wings, control surfaces, spars, bulkheads, and major structural interfaces
• Experience performing linear, non-linear, modal, and dynamic analyses including sine, random, and acoustic excitation
• Experience performing fatigue and crack propagation analysis for metallics
• Experience supporting structural testing, FEM correlation, modal/buckling analysis, and flight-test hardware
• Experience developing structural analysis reports, documenting margins of safety, and supporting engineering design reviews and hardware release
• Experience with rapid prototype development and hands-on manufacturing or assembly of aerospace structures
