{"id":479595,"url":"https://alion.io/job/voltic-asymmetric-upside-engineering","title":"Asymmetric Upside Engineering","company":{"id":20398,"name":"Voltic","domain":"volticshipping.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/voltic","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Work at a Startup","truth_index":null},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":null,"employment_type":"contractor","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Boston, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":112000,"max_usd":231000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":105},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Abaqus","optional":false},{"name":"ANSYS","optional":false},{"name":"Fusion 360","optional":false},{"name":"SolidWorks","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-06T15:57:26Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-14","last_verified_at":"2026-11-15T10:01:49Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":70,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":70},"description":"Asymmetric Upside Engineering\nWe are looking to hire a part-time mechanical engineer to pursue asymmetric-upside designs. We have numerous engineering projects that have the potential to dramatically add value to Voltic, and thus shipping as a whole. However, the current team doesn’t have the bandwidth to pursue all of them at a high fidelity level. You would own one of these projects.\nThese are ambitious projects that are extremely high-upside. We have done the initial work proving they are physically and economically possible. However, this is novel engineering. You would be starting with something at (roughly) TRL 3. The goal would be to progress it to (roughly) TRL 6. This will mostly consist of refining designs and building initial prototypes.\nExample Projects\nPort infrastructure to enable large vessels to call shallow-water ports\nSemi-autonomous routing of Voltic vessels\nNovel hull designs to substantially reduce weight & drag\n3D printing vessel hulls\nCore responsibilities\nLead the design, analysis and prototyping of asymmetric upside engineering projects\nConduct analyses of such systems to ensure survivability in the maritime environment\nCreate and maintain technical drawings to be shared with colleagues and manufacturers\nDevelop and manage Bills of Material (BOMs) for costing and system build-out\nPhysically assemble prototypes in Boston to prove viability of designs.\nQualifications\nAbility to take design from concept to prototype to mass-production\nWillingness to move quickly and build things in the real world\nExperience with Design for Manufacturing/Assembly principles and manufacturing processes (sheet metal, welding, machining, 3D printing, etc.).\nProficiency in a CAD software such as SolidWorks or Fusion 360\nProficiency in a FEA software package such as Abaqus or Ansys\nComfortable working in an early-stage startup environment with evolving requirements and limited precedent\nWho we are\nJoão Seixas de Medeiros - CTO\nJoão is a Naval Architect and Ocean Engineer with a PhD from MIT and over a decade of experience in hydrodynamics research and vessel design. He has developed advanced software to simulate nonlinear ocean wave behavior, applying it to optimize innovative vessel and wave energy converter designs. His work has earned recognition, including the MIT De Florez award for best graduate design.\n\nKarl McLetchie - Founding Mechanical Engineer\nKarl is a Mechanical and Ocean Engineer with two master's degrees from MIT and more than two decades of design and at-sea experience. He has been on over 30 research expeditions; operating underwater vehicles and towed systems for deep-sea exploration. His design work has covered a broad spectrum of applications, from traditional naval architecture to the mechanical design of hydraulic sampling mechanisms and vehicle launch and recovery equipment. \n\nProsser Cathey - Founder\nProsser graduated from MIT in three years, completing three majors. Upon graduation, he won a Fulbright Research Fellowship to study the German auto industry's transition to EVs in Munich. He also rowed for MIT's D1 Heavyweight Crew team, with whom he won a Gold Medal at Head of the Charles.\n\nSince our physical engineering and assembly takes place at our workshop in Boston, some travel is likely necessary. Compensation and equity-package is highly dependent on proposed project. We expect the work to begin as part-time.\nIn your message on YC, please include a brief description of the project on which you would like to work.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3506,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Sea Freight"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-06T15:57:26Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":8,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.272,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":69,"expected_fill_days":24,"reasons":["conf:5","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-15T07:52:55Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/voltic-asymmetric-upside-engineering","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/voltic-asymmetric-upside-engineering.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-15T18:36:58Z","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":11548,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-16T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"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":20398},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=20398"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fvoltic-asymmetric-upside-engineering"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"free","price":{"credits":0,"usd":0},"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%2Fvoltic-asymmetric-upside-engineering"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"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%2Fvoltic-asymmetric-upside-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/voltic-asymmetric-upside-engineering\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fvoltic-asymmetric-upside-engineering"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":479595}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"volticshipping.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":479595},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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