Principal Mechanical Engineer (Defense)

Location: El Segundo, California, United States; full-time, on-site position in Hawthorne, California

Salary: $160,000–$260,000 annual base compensation, excluding bonus, equity, and benefits

Company

hirify.global develops defense products powered by Coherent Distributed Networks for warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams. Founded in 2022, the company has raised $1 billion and has offices in the United States and London.

What you will do

• Own the mechanical architecture, design, integration, production transition, configuration control, and sustainment of missile and UAV launcher systems across mobile ground and maritime platforms.
• Define mechanical and electro-mechanical interfaces between missiles, canisters, and platforms, including power, data, connectors, tolerancing, alignment, installation practices, and ICDs.
• Develop mechanisms and actuation systems for deployment, retention, release, and mechanical safing.
• Design solutions for blast, plume, thermal, gas-management, shielding, structural-load, corrosion, motion-environment, and other ruggedized hardware challenges.
• Ensure compliance with safety interlocks, launch-sequencing constraints, military standards, and system-level hazard-analysis requirements.
• Lead technical decisions and act as the primary hardware interface with customers, platform providers, suppliers, manufacturing partners, and subcontractors, including make/buy assessments and integration issue resolution.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline.
• 10+ years of progressively responsible mechanical design and system-integration experience in aerospace or defense.
• Experience designing missile launcher systems or closely related hardware.
• Strong background in structural design, mechanisms, and ruggedized hardware for harsh environments.
• Experience with electro-mechanical integration, including power and data interfaces and connector systems.
• Working knowledge of blast, thermal, and dynamic loads associated with rocket or missile systems.
• Familiarity with system safety principles, safe-and-arm or fuzing interfaces, and launch interlocks.
• Strong proficiency with CAD tools such as SolidWorks or equivalent, including large assemblies.
• Understanding of mechanical interfaces, tolerancing, alignment, installation practices, and interface control documents.
• Experience interpreting and applying military standards such as MIL-STD-810 and environmental qualification practices.
• Ability to lead technical decisions, resolve cross-disciplinary integration challenges, communicate effectively, and work across multiple programs.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

Nice to have

• Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field.
• Experience as a mechanical technical authority on a program.
• Experience planning, instrumenting, and executing hardware tests.
• Experience designing and integrating mechanisms and actuation systems, and allocating system-level requirements.
• Familiarity with vehicle integration constraints, including shock, vibration, transport, and operational loads.
• Experience with commercial FEA or multiphysics tools such as NASTRAN, ABAQUS, ANSYS, CFD codes, or COMSOL.
• Knowledge of manufacturing and assembly processes for mobile or deployable mechanical structures and mechanisms.
• Experience with prototyping, additive manufacturing, CNC machining, and other fabrication techniques.
• Familiarity with military-style connectors such as MIL-DTL-38999, ARINC, and micro-D.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time, on-site work in Hawthorne, California, with a hands-on environment.
• Medical, dental, and vision benefits fully paid by the company.
• 401(k) with a 50% company match up to 6% of pay, FSA, HSA, and life insurance.
• Free daily lunch, no-meeting Fridays, unlimited PTO, and casual dress code.
• Pre-IPO stock options, relocation assistance, and annual bonuses planned for the future.