Mechanical Engineer- LA
- Posted
- 2H AGO
A signal privately tells Kela Technologies you're interested. It is not a job application.
About the role
Description
About the role
You'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.
What you'll do:
- Design and own mechanical assemblies end-to-end: housing, structure, actuation mechanisms, and integration architecture.
- Define the mechanical safety architecture in collaboration with HW and SW leads — interlocks, fail-safe geometry, retention features, and impact behavior.
- Spec materials, tolerances, finishes, and fasteners for operating environments involving temperature, vibration, humidity, and drop loads.
- Build and iterate prototypes in-house (3D print, CNC); hand off polished DFM packages to external machinists and mold vendors.
- Plan and execute mechanical qualification: drop, shock, vibration, environmental, mass-properties, and integration testing.
- Own the BOM, weight budget, and CG budget — track them as the safety-critical numbers they are.
- Collaborate directly with HW and SW engineers on PCB envelope, connector placement, harnessing, and mechanism actuation.
Required:
- 7+ years designing mechanical assemblies that go into the field — UAV payloads, defense, automotive, aerospace, or similar rugged/regulated domains.
- Fluency in a parametric CAD tool (SolidWorks, Fusion 360, Onshape, Creo, or NX).
- Ability to produce manufacturing-ready drawings: GD&T, tolerance stacks, surface finishes, and fits.
- Hands-on with prototyping: FDM/SLA printers, basic machining (mill, lathe), and in-lab build-and-break cycles.
- Strong failure-mode intuition — you've broken things on purpose and know which question to ask next.
- Working English, written and verbal.
Nice to have:
- Experience with energetics, safety-critical arming or actuation mechanisms in defense, aerospace, or industrial applications.
- Familiarity with MIL-STD-810 (environmental), MIL-STD-331, or equivalent civilian qualification standards.
- FEA / structural simulation (Ansys, SolidWorks Simulation, Onshape FEA).
- Injection-mold and metal-casting DFM experience.
- UAV or payload integration experience, including mass/CG sensitivity.
How 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.
