{"id":1264700,"url":"https://alion.io/job/kela-mechanical-engineer-la","title":"Mechanical Engineer- LA","company":{"id":1971233,"name":"Kela","domain":"kela.io","url":"https://alion.io/company/kela-io","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Comeet","truth_index":null},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":94000,"max_usd":181000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":2941},"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Fusion 360","optional":false},{"name":"SLI/SLO/SLA","optional":false},{"name":"SolidWorks","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-16T11:52:46Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-16","last_verified_at":"2026-10-02T00:38:49Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":15,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":15},"description":"Description\nAbout the role\nYou'll own the mechanical side of our products - from concept and CAD through prototyping, qualification, and production transfer. Our systems are safety-critical, field-deployed, and built to survive demanding environments. This is a hands-on role: you'll be in the lab as much as at your desk, and you'll work directly alongside hardware and software engineers.\nWhat you'll do:\nDesign and own mechanical assemblies end-to-end: housing, structure, actuation mechanisms, and integration architecture.\nDefine the mechanical safety architecture in collaboration with HW and SW leads - interlocks, fail-safe geometry, retention features, and impact behavior.\nSpec materials, tolerances, finishes, and fasteners for operating environments involving temperature, vibration, humidity, and drop loads.\nBuild and iterate prototypes in-house (3D print, CNC); hand off polished DFM packages to external machinists and mold vendors.\nPlan and execute mechanical qualification: drop, shock, vibration, environmental, mass-properties, and integration testing.\nOwn the BOM, weight budget, and CG budget - track them as the safety-critical numbers they are.\nCollaborate directly with HW and SW engineers on PCB envelope, connector placement, harnessing, and mechanism actuation.\nRequired:\n7+ years designing mechanical assemblies that go into the field - UAV payloads, defense, automotive, aerospace, or similar rugged/regulated domains.\nFluency in a parametric CAD tool (SolidWorks, Fusion 360, Onshape, Creo, or NX).\nAbility to produce manufacturing-ready drawings: GD&T, tolerance stacks, surface finishes, and fits.\nHands-on with prototyping: FDM/SLA printers, basic machining (mill, lathe), and in-lab build-and-break cycles.\nStrong failure-mode intuition - you've broken things on purpose and know which question to ask next.\nWorking English, written and verbal.\nNice to have:\nExperience with energetics, safety-critical arming or actuation mechanisms in defense, aerospace, or industrial applications.\nFamiliarity with MIL-STD-810 (environmental), MIL-STD-331, or equivalent civilian qualification standards.\nFEA / structural simulation (Ansys, SolidWorks Simulation, Onshape FEA).\nInjection-mold and metal-casting DFM experience.\nUAV or payload integration experience, including mass/CG sensitivity.\nHow we work: Short cycles, weekly hardware iterations. You'll sit next to the HW and SW engineers and have a lab with prototyping equipment on-site. We expect you to be opinionated, design for testability from day one, and push back when constraints are wrong.","description_format":"text","description_chars":2579,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-25T21:59:01Z"}],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.897,"p_room":1,"age_days":14,"expected_fill_days":47,"reasons":["conf:5","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-01T05:45:00Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/kela-mechanical-engineer-la","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/kela-mechanical-engineer-la.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-02T01:38:48Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":2065,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":2935,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-03T00:00:00Z"}}}