{"id":2390561,"url":"https://alion.io/job/aurelius-systems-sr-mechanical-engineer","title":"Sr. Mechanical Engineer","company":{"id":669079,"name":"Aurelius Systems","domain":"aureliussystems.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/aureliussystems","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":95,"open_postings":4,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":72,"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":165000,"max":210000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":210000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-12T19:35:21Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-12","last_verified_at":"2026-10-13T14:46:51Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"Who We Are:\nAurelius Systems is a VC backed defense tech startup building autonomous, edge deployed directed energy systems for counter-UAS. We build laser weapons to shoot down drones.\nWe're a small team of engineers, former US military, and subject matter experts scaling America's directed energy dominance. The first cost effective, reliable and robust laser weapon system.\nOur namesake isn't an accident. Marcus Aurelius wrote about doing the work in front of you, every day, without excuses. Henry Ford didn't wait for permission to reinvent manufacturing. That's how we operate small team, unreasonable output, no hiding behind the unachievable.\nIn addition to our San Francisco lab, we opened our Detroit manufacturing hub and field test weekly on our own 400-acre private range.\nThe Role and Your Impact:\nWe need a Senior Mechanical Engineer who owns major mechanical subsystems on Archimedes end to end and makes them survive the field. That means ruggedization of a fiber laser system against shock, vibration, moisture and environmental extremes, plus the structure, thermal management and precision packaging around the laser head and beam director. You'll work hands on from architecture through bench validation, field correlation and the production handoff to our Detroit manufacturing hub, alongside our Staff and Principal engineers.\nWhat You'll Own:\nMechanical design of major subsystems: laser source and head enclosures, gimbal and beam director structure, mounts\n\nSurvivability to MIL-STD shock, vibration, humidity, dust and austere environments\n\nThermal management for high-power laser and electronics packaging\n\nPrecision and optomechanical packaging that holds alignment through shock and thermal cycles\n\nFEA (static, modal, random vibration, shock response spectrum) and correlation to test\n\nTest rigs, instrumentation and bench validation you build and run yourself\n\nDFM and the handoff to manufacturing in Detroit\n\nDesign reviews and raising the bar for the junior ME team\n\nWhat We're Looking For:\n5+ years in mechanical engineering on ruggedized, field-deployable or high-performance systems\n\nAt least one subsystem you took from prototype to production\n\nStrong FEA (ANSYS, Nastran, Abaqus or equivalent) and the bench work to back it up\n\nHands-on design to MIL-STD-810 or equivalent shock and vibration standards\n\nThermal design for high-power systems\n\nEvidence you learn fast. You got effective in a new domain in months, not years\n\nWhere you probably come from: Defense hardware, airborne or ground vehicle systems, F1 and high-performance automotive, aerospace, maritime, ruggedized electronics, or directed energy and field-deployed sensor programs. Domain matters less than shipping hardware that had to survive.\nWe want to talk if: You've owned a system that had to survive shock, vibration and environmental extremes in a tight, deployable package, and you modeled it, built it, instrumented it and correlated it.\nNot a fit if: You've only done commercial or consumer product design, your work is simulation-only with no bench validation, or you've spent years on one narrow subcomponent without seeing the system around it.\nNice to Haves:\nLaser, directed energy or high-power hardware\n\nOptical bench or precision instrument ruggedization\n\nMIL-STD-461 EMI/EMC awareness for mechanical integration\n\nVehicle-mounted systems\n\nManufacturing ramp experience\n\nEducation: BS or MS in Mechanical, Aerospace or related field. What you've built matters more than where you went to school.\nHow You Operate:\nExtreme bias for action. You'd rather build a prototype tomorrow than model it for a month\n\nYou characterize your own systems before the field does\n\nComfortable with ambiguity and fast iteration in a startup environment\n\nYou debug from first principles, not intuition alone\n\nClear communicator across mechanical, electrical, optical, and software teams\n\nSelf directed. You identify what needs to happen next and do it without being told\n\nWhy Join Aurelius Systems:\nBuild more in 1 month than most engineers build in 1 year. We field test weekly. Your work goes downrange, not into a filing cabinet.\n\nCareer velocity is real. At ~10 engineers, there are no layers between you and impact.\n\nWork on a problem that actually matters. Small cheap drones are changing warfare. Our laser systems are the asymmetric answer - infinite magazine, near zero cost per shot, scalable to every base, border, facility, and truck.\n\nJoin the densest defense startup ecosystem in the country. California is where the next generation of defense companies are being built.\n\nHow We Work:\nCore hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 6. When we're sprinting toward a demo or field test, the team ramps up - nights, weekends, whatever it takes to ship. When the sprint lands, we ramp down. We don't manufacture intensity for show.\nBenefits:\nCompetitive salary and equity\n\nUnited Health Care medical, dental, and vision coverage\n\nFlexible 18 days PTO plus 5 sick days\n\nTravel to field test events and range days\n\nCovered daily lunches and office snacks and drinks\n\nE-bike and scooter stipend up to $500\n\nDirect access to leadership and real ownership over your work\n\nExport Control Notice:\nThis role requires access to export-controlled information or items that require U.S. Person status. As defined by U.S. law, individuals who are any one of the following are considered to be a U.S. Person: (1) U.S. citizens, (2) legal permanent residents (a.k.a. green card holders), and (3) certain protected classes of asylees and refugees, as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).","description_format":"text","description_chars":5574,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Air Defense","Defense Manufacturing"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-12T21:05:11Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":72,"reasons":["conf:1","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":210000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/aurelius-systems-sr-mechanical-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/aurelius-systems-sr-mechanical-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-13T14:55:53Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":22788,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-14T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":669079},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=669079"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Faurelius-systems-sr-mechanical-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Faurelius-systems-sr-mechanical-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Faurelius-systems-sr-mechanical-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/aurelius-systems-sr-mechanical-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Faurelius-systems-sr-mechanical-engineer"}]}