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Salary: USD 167,000 - 209,000 / annual
CHAOS Industries is seeking a hands-on Staff Mechanical Design Engineer to lead the design and integration of air-launched and ground-launched aerospace vehicles and associated hardware, from early concept development through flight test and production support. This is a build-and-fly environment where you will own mechanical design for airframes, control surfaces, and structures while working closely across engineering and manufacturing functions to get real hardware flying.
You will perform hands-on mechanical design and integration of flight-vehicle structures and mechanical hardware, including control surfaces, payload and avionics hardware, mechanisms, enclosures, and related support equipment. You will own the mechanical design and integration of defined subsystems, product areas, or major assemblies, perform trade studies, and recommend paths forward. Your responsibilities include developing and maintaining 3D CAD models, assemblies, detailed drawings, assembly and installation documentation, and interface control documents (ICDs). You will develop mechanical designs subject to structural, thermal, environmental, manufacturability, installation, and operational requirements, and perform first-order structural and thermal analyses, hand calculations, requirements analysis, and design verification activities.
You will lead design reviews on owned designs, work collaboratively with mechanical, electrical, electrical harness, RF, power, manufacturing, systems engineering, customers, suppliers, and platform providers to resolve integration challenges. You will support system integration, qualification, and flight testing, including fit-check, installation, alignment, and troubleshooting. Additionally, you will support prototype fabrication, assembly, transition to production, configuration control, fielding, and sustainment of deployed systems. As a Staff-level engineer, you will mentor junior engineers.
The position is available in El Segundo, CA or Tucson, AZ depending on candidate preference and role needs. The El Segundo position requires regular on-site work. The Tucson position may be primarily remote; however, the employee must reside within reasonable commuting distance of Tucson and be able to report on-site as needed. This requisition is open to candidates who may be considered for a lower or higher job level, with final level and grade determined based on relevant experience, skills, and qualifications.
CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised $1 billion in funding from leading investors including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London.
**Requirements:**
Minimum:
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or 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 calculations and/or FEA
- Experience applying military specifications and applicable aerospace, defense, and airworthiness standards
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance
Preferred:
- Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related field
- Experience with composite materials, bonded joints, and composite manufacturing processes
- Experience with advanced structural analysis methods (fatigue, damage tolerance, fracture mechanics, buckling, aeroelasticity) using commercial FEA/multiphysics tools (ANSYS, NASTRAN, ABAQUS, COMSOL, or similar)
- 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
