Founding Mechanical Engineer (US)

We are looking for a Founding Mechanical Engineer with 4+ years of experience to help define how the world's leading space, defense, manufacturing, and robotics companies evaluate their next generation of mechanical talent. You'll be a CAD-focused design engineer with broad mechanical engineering foundations, ideally coming from a Series A, E startup or defense prime in the aerospace and defense space. You'll work directly with mechanical leads across disciplines, propulsion, thermal, structural, to deeply understand their workflows and translate that knowledge into scalable, real-world engineering assessments. This is a rare opportunity to shape what great mechanical engineering looks like at an early-stage company transforming how hardtech teams hire.

What will you be doing?

• Building and owning the Mechanical Space & Defense Taxonomy, mapping the full landscape of mechanical engineering roles, required skills, and how to evaluate them through remote, online assessments

• Conducting intake conversations with mechanical leads (thermal, propulsion, structural) at client companies to understand their work, goals, and what great talent looks like to them

• Designing CAD-based assessment tasks across SolidWorks, OnShape, and Autodesk that reflect real engineering workflows and capture true engineering judgment

• Creating transition guides and resources that help candidates with different CAD backgrounds apply their skills across platforms

• Translating domain expertise into deterministic scoring rubrics and structured evaluation criteria that scale across clients