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Salary: USD 198,000 - 248,000 / annual
CHAOS Industries is seeking a Senior Staff Mechanical Engineer to lead the design, development, packaging, integration, and qualification of ruggedized electronic hardware, sensor systems, avionics, and mission-critical systems for aerospace and defense applications. The company specializes in advanced sensing and detection solutions powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN), serving warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams.
In this full-time, on-site role, you will own mechanical design responsibility for subsystems, product areas, or hardware integration efforts. You will develop mechanical architectures and detailed designs subject to structural, thermal, environmental, manufacturability, and operational requirements. Key responsibilities include:
• Lead design, development, packaging, and mechanical integration of ruggedized electronic hardware, sensor systems, avionics, structures, and mechanisms
• Own mechanical design responsibility for subsystems or product areas, ensuring alignment with system-level requirements and mission needs
• Develop and maintain 3D CAD models, large assemblies, detailed drawings, installation documentation, and interface control documents (ICDs)
• Perform structural and thermal analyses, hand calculations, requirements analysis, and design verification activities
• Provide technical guidance during system integration, qualification, acceptance, fit-check, installation, and troubleshooting
• Serve as key technical hardware interface with customers, suppliers, manufacturing partners, and cross-functional stakeholders
• Support make/buy assessments, prototype fabrication, production transition, configuration control, and fielded system sustainment
• Mentor less-experienced engineers and designers
The position spans the full product lifecycle from concept development through detailed design, analysis, prototyping, qualification testing, production, and sustainment of fielded systems.
**Requirements:**
Minimum:
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or related discipline
- 10+ years of progressively responsible experience in mechanical design and integration of electronic hardware for aerospace, defense, or similar applications
- Strong proficiency with mechanical CAD tools (SolidWorks or equivalent), including complex assemblies and detailed design
- Experience producing and reviewing production-ready mechanical drawings and documentation
- Strong understanding of mechanical interfaces, tolerancing, alignment, installation practices, and interface control documents (ICDs)
- Familiarity with military and aerospace connectors (MIL-DTL-38999, ARINC, Micro-D)
- Strong understanding of mechanical drafting standards, GD&T, tolerance analysis, and configuration-controlled documentation
- Familiarity with structural analysis methods, including hand calculations and FEA
- Demonstrated experience designing or integrating ruggedized hardware and considering applicable environmental requirements
- Experience interpreting and applying military standards (MIL-STD-810 and related platform qualification requirements)
- Proven ability to make sound mechanical design decisions and resolve complex integration challenges in cross-disciplinary collaboration
- Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to operate effectively in fast-paced, multi-disciplinary development environments
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance
Preferred:
- Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering or related field
- Prior experience serving as lead mechanical engineer or technical authority on a program
- Experience with system-level requirements allocation, architecture trade studies, and mechanical subsystem definition
- Experience supporting environmental qualification testing and analysis (thermal cycling, vibration, shock)
- Experience with commercial FEA or multiphysics simulation tools (NASTRAN, ABAQUS, ANSYS, COMSOL, or similar)
- Experience with mechanisms, actuation systems, structures, thermal management, packaging, cable routing, connector layouts, or electromechanical integration
- Experience with prototyping, additive manufacturing, CNC machining, fabrication, assembly, and production transition
- Familiarity with aerospace, defense, military, or other ruggedized hardware standards and specifications
