Lead Mechanical Engineer (Aerospace)

Location: Alameda, United States; on-site

Company

hirify.global builds and operates full-size autonomous cargo aircraft capable of carrying two tons of payload over more than a thousand nautical miles.

What you will do

• Lead the design of primary aircraft structures, mechanisms, and major airframe assemblies.
• Develop composite and metallic structures, joints, interfaces, mounting systems, and aircraft mechanisms.
• Define structural load paths, design requirements, margins, and validation methods; perform and review hand calculations and finite element analysis.
• Lead preliminary and critical design reviews while managing interfaces across airframe, propulsion, avionics, flight controls, and landing systems.
• Own CAD assemblies, production drawings, bills of materials, tolerances, and design releases.
• Support manufacturing, assembly, integration, ground testing, flight testing, failure investigation, and corrective actions while mentoring mechanical engineers.

Requirements

• Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
• 7 or more years of relevant mechanical, structural, or aerospace engineering experience.
• Experience designing primary aircraft structures or large composite airframes, including bonded composite structures, sandwich panels, bonded inserts, and hybrid composite-metallic assemblies.
• Experience with aircraft mechanisms, structural mechanics, load paths, joint design, composite failure modes, buckling, fatigue, vibration, modal analysis, or damage tolerance.
• Strong proficiency with CAD and finite element analysis tools, plus the ability to verify analysis using hand calculations and first-principles methods.
• Experience taking safety-critical hardware through manufacturing and testing, applying GD&T, and designing for manufacturing, assembly, inspection, maintenance, and repair.

Nice to have

• Experience designing structures for marine environments.
• Experience developing structural test plans, fixtures, instrumentation, and acceptance criteria.
• Familiarity with FAA certification, military airworthiness, or experimental flight-test programs.
• Proficiency with MATLAB or Python for engineering analysis.
• Experience with product lifecycle management and configuration control systems.

Culture & Benefits

• Competitive salary and meaningful early-stage equity.
• Relocation support if applicable.
• Employee health benefit plans and 6% retirement matching.
• Flexible PTO.
• Free lunches, snacks, a stocked office fridge, and access to AI tools and subscriptions.