Principal Mechanical Engineer (Defense)

Location: On-site in Hawthorne, California, United States

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 military, commercial aviation, and border protection applications.

What you will do

• Own the mechanical architecture and integration 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, and connector systems.
• Develop environmental protection and structural solutions for blast, plume, thermal, shock, vibration, corrosion, and dynamic-load conditions.
• Design safing, deployment, retention, release, and actuation mechanisms while supporting safety interlocks, launch sequencing, and hazard analyses.
• Lead customer, platform-provider, supplier, and manufacturing-partner hardware interfaces, including make-or-buy assessments.
• Support production transition, configuration control, field deployment, sustainment, and resolution of integration issues.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related discipline.
• 10+ years of progressively responsible experience in mechanical design and systems integration for aerospace or defense.
• Demonstrated experience designing missile launcher systems or closely related hardware.
• Strong experience with structural design, mechanisms, ruggedized hardware, electro-mechanical integration, tolerancing, alignment, installation practices, and interface control documents.
• Proficiency with CAD tools such as SolidWorks or equivalent, including large assemblies; familiarity with military standards such as MIL-STD-810 and environmental qualification practices.
• 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, planning and executing hardware tests, or allocating system-level requirements.
• Experience with FEA or multiphysics tools such as NASTRAN, ABAQUS, ANSYS, CFD codes, or COMSOL.
• Knowledge of manufacturing, assembly, prototyping, additive manufacturing, CNC machining, and fabrication techniques.
• Familiarity with military-style connectors, including MIL-Circular 38999, ARINC, and micro-D.

Culture & Benefits

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