{"id":1884435,"url":"https://alion.io/job/trident-systems-director-mechanical-engineering","title":"Director, Mechanical Engineering","company":{"id":2311281,"name":"Trident Systems","domain":"tridsys.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/tridsys","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"ADP","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":80,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":20,"computed_at":"2026-10-09T06:01:00Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Sterling, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":153000,"max":230000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":230000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":15,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"SolidWorks","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-26T21:55:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-26","last_verified_at":"2026-10-09T23:35:10Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":44,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":44},"description":"Position Title: Director, Mechanical Engineering\nRequisition ID: 1863\nPosition Location: Sterling, VA\nPosition Reports To: Senior Director, Hardware Engineering\nSupervises Others: Yes\nAt Trident Systems Space Electronic Systems (SES) division, we believe in the power of using strong engineering principles to drive innovation and solve complex problems. We foster a culture of rigorous engineering and continuous improvement, leveraging the full knowledge of our organization through collaborative product development processes that include design and peer reviews. We combine our expertise in space electronics with right-sized development processes to create innovative, high-performance space-based electronic systems that meet our customers' evolving needs.\nWe are a mission partner supporting DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers. We develop complex, radiation effects mitigated, designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.\nPosition Summary\nWe are seeking an accomplished Director of Mechanical Engineering to build, lead, and grow our mechanical engineering discipline in support of DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space programs. This is a dual-track role: the Director serves as the functional manager for the mechanical engineering organization - responsible for staffing, career development, and performance of the team, while also serving as the Cognizant Mechanical Engineer (CME) design authority, holding technical signature authority over mechanical designs, analyses, and products delivered across the division.\nThe Director defines and matures mechanical engineering processes, standards, and best practices, ensuring consistent, high-quality, and efficient execution across programs. This individual partners with program managers, chief engineers, and peer discipline leads to balance functional excellence with program delivery, sets technical direction, and adjudicates complex mechanical engineering issues spanning structural, thermal, and electro-mechanical domains. The successful candidate combines deep technical credibility with proven people-leadership skill and is comfortable operating as both an executive stakeholder and a hands-on technical authority.\nDuties and Responsibilities\nCognizant Mechanical Engineer (CME) / Design Authority:\nServe as the Cognizant Mechanical Engineer design authority, holding technical sign-off responsibility for mechanical designs, structural and thermal analyses, and drawing packages prior to release.\nLead and/or oversee the mechanical design of spacecraft electronics assemblies using high-fidelity CAD tools such as SolidWorks or similar, ensuring designs meet requirements and manufacturability standards.\nReview and approve detailed structural and thermal analyses validating design integrity under flight loads and temperatures.\nProvide technical oversight of space environmental testing and qualification activities, including vibration, thermal-vacuum (TVAC), and shock testing, to ensure flight readiness.\nResolve complex, cross-disciplinary technical issues spanning mechanical, electrical, software, and firmware domains, exercising expert engineering judgment on problems of significant scope and ambiguity.\nRepresent mechanical engineering technical authority in customer, program, and executive-level reviews.\nProcess Definition & Engineering Excellence:\nDefine, document, and continuously improve mechanical engineering processes, design standards, and best practices across the division (CAD standards, drawing/GD&T conventions, analysis methodologies, PDM/configuration management practices).\nEstablish and enforce design review, peer review, and verification gate criteria for mechanical work products, ensuring consistency and quality across programs.\nDrive continuous improvement initiatives to increase engineering efficiency, reduce rework, and shorten design-to-delivery cycle time.\nEnsure mechanical engineering processes align with applicable aerospace, DoD, and space-qualification standards.\nFunctional Management:\nLead, mentor, and grow the mechanical engineering organization, including hiring, staffing allocation across programs, performance management, and career development planning.\nOwn the mechanical engineering discipline's headcount, skills roadmap, and succession planning to meet current and future program needs.\nEstablish goals and performance expectations for mechanical engineers; conduct regular performance reviews and provide coaching to develop technical and professional growth.\nPartner with Talent Acquisition to define role requirements, interview candidates, and build a pipeline of mechanical engineering talent.\nProgram & Organizational Support:\nAdvise program management and executive leadership on mechanical engineering capacity, risk, and technical strategy.\nAbility to support travel or off-site work, as needed.\nPerform other duties as assigned.\nRequired Qualifications\nBachelor's degree in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering from an ABET-accredited program.\n15+ years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree, or 13+ years with a Master's degree, including demonstrated experience leading mechanical engineering teams.\nDemonstrated experience serving as a design authority or equivalent technical signature/approval role for aerospace or space hardware.\nPrior experience in a functional or people-management role, including hiring, performance management, and staff development.\nExperience defining or maturing engineering processes and standards within an aerospace, defense, or comparable regulated engineering environment.\nExperience with aerospace and/or space hardware development.\nExperience with PDM systems and configuration management.\nPreferred Qualifications\nWorking knowledge of space electronics packaging and cooling (VPX standards) and designing for space environments.\nMaster's degree in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering.\nPrior experience building or scaling an engineering discipline within a growing organization.\nPay Information\nFull-Time Salary Range: $153,000 - $230,000\nPlease Note: Actual compensation offered will be determined based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, education, certifications, internal equity, business considerations, and geographic location where applicable.\nBenefits\nHired applicants may be eligible for benefits including but not limited to:\nHealth benefitsMedical \nDental \nVision\nBasic life with AD&D\nShort term disability\nLong term disability\nAncillary (Voluntary life with AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital, and pet)\nSpending accounts (HSA, FSA, and DCFSA)\n\nPaid time off\nHolidays\n401(k) (including company match)\nTuition reimbursement\nLeaves (Parental, maternity, and military)\nAnnual discretionary bonus (for eligible roles)\n\nTrident Systems reserves the right to change or assign other duties to this position. \nTrident Solutions is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. To request reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact .\nPay Transparency: The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)","description_format":"text","description_chars":8323,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":15,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Military","Defense Manufacturing"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-05T01:29:48Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":26,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.735,"p_room":0.35,"age_days":43,"expected_fill_days":20,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-10-09T06:01:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":230000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/trident-systems-director-mechanical-engineering","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/trident-systems-director-mechanical-engineering.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-10T00:09:15Z","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","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":142,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":4858,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-11T00:00:00Z"}},"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":2311281},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=2311281"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Ftrident-systems-director-mechanical-engineering"},{"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%2Ftrident-systems-director-mechanical-engineering"},{"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%2Ftrident-systems-director-mechanical-engineering"},{"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/trident-systems-director-mechanical-engineering\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Ftrident-systems-director-mechanical-engineering"}]}