Mechanical Engineer II

Job Description

Job Description

Mechanical Engineer II – Rugged Electronics Product DevelopmentAbout Orion Edge

We are an agile, early-stage startup in a rapid growth phase, developing next-generation electronic warfare (EW) and digital disruption equipment. Our mission is to deliver cutting-edge capabilities to the modern warfighter at speed. Orion Edge is currently delivering systems to the US Army and USSOCOM, and we are scaling quickly to support the broader Department of Defense (DoD). If you thrive in a fast-paced environment where your work directly impacts national security and you have the opportunity to scale your career with a growing company, you belong here.

Position Overview

As a Mechanical Engineer II , you will design and develop compact, ruggedized electronic and electromechanical products that withstand harsh operational environments. This is a hands-on, early-to-mid-career product design role where you will own the physical packaging of our technology-from initial enclosure concepts, sealing, and thermal management to prototyping, testing, and production.

You will work closely with electrical, RF, and PCB engineers to package complex electronics into deployable defense systems. If you have a passion for building physical hardware, love solving spatial puzzles, and want to see your designs transition quickly to the field, you belong on this team.

This position requires U.S. Citizenship and the ability to obtain a U.S. Security Clearance.

Education Requirements

• Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Mechanical Engineering or a closely related engineering discipline.

Key Responsibilities

• Mechanical & Housing Design: Design compact enclosures, brackets, thermal components, connector interfaces, and small mechanisms using SolidWorks.

• Thermal & Physical Modeling: Run first-order hand calculations and basic thermal/mechanical simulations to design optimized heat sinks, fans, and ducting.

• ECAD-MCAD Collaboration: Collaborate with electrical and PCB engineers to manage board outlines, keepouts, component heights, and connector placement.

• Prototype & Validate: Build, instrument, and test physical prototypes (for fit, thermal performance, and environmental sealing) to validate design assumptions.

• DFM & Production Support: Apply Design for Manufacturability (DFM) principles for CNC machining, sheet metal, injection molding, and additive manufacturing; manage the transition from prototype to production.

• Documentation & Release: Author clean engineering drawings, specifications, assembly instructions, bills of materials (BOMs), and engineering change notices.

Required Skills & Experience

• Professional Experience: 3 to 5 years of relevant mechanical design experience. We highly value hands-on experience and will consider substantial internships, co-ops, senior design projects, military technical experience, or competitive engineering teams (e.g., Formula SAE, robotics).

• 3D CAD Proficiency: Strong experience using SolidWorks (or similar parametric 3D CAD tool) to create clean models, assemblies, configurations, and basic 2D drawings.

• Engineering Fundamentals: Strong grasp of statics, mechanics of materials, heat transfer, thermodynamics, fits, and manufacturing tolerances.

• Tolerance & GD&T Basics: Practical understanding of mechanical tolerances, limit stacks, and the application of basic GD&T principles.

• Hands-on Assembly & Test: Proven track record of building, testing, or troubleshooting physical hardware in a lab, shop, or maker setting.

• Design Verification: Experience testing physical hardware and utilizing test results to validate or iterate on mechanical designs.

Preferred Qualifications

• Rugged Electronics Packaging: Experience packaging electronics, radios, robotics, or avionics into IP-rated, sealed enclosures (using gaskets, O-rings, and sealed connectors).

• Advanced SolidWorks: Experience with complex assemblies, configurations, surfacing, multibody parts, and detailed assembly drawings.

• Thermal Analysis & Simulation: Familiarity with thermal interface materials (TIMs), heat pipes, or vapor chambers, alongside experience using simulation software (e.g., SolidWorks Flow Simulation, Ansys, Icepak, FloEFD, or Flotherm).

• Advanced GD&T: Training or project-level application of GD&T per ASME Y14.5 and formal tolerance-stack calculations.

• ECAD-MCAD Toolsets: Familiarity with collaboration tools such as Altium MCAD CoDesigner, CircuitWorks, or IDX/IDF.

• Vendor & Supplier Interface: Experience working directly with machine shops, sheet metal fabricators, 3D printing bureaus, or molders.

• Environmental Testing: Exposure to environmental compliance testing (vibration, drop, thermal cycling, or water/dust ingress).

• Advanced degrees.

Professional Attributes

• Hardware-First Mindset: You love physical prototyping and are eager to work with shop tools, 3D printers, and thermal testing instrumentation.

• Grounded in Reality: You understand that CAD and simulation are tools, and you always verify digital models against hand calculations and real-world physical tests.

• Systems & Collaborative Thinker: You actively communicate across engineering boundaries, asking smart questions to discover hidden electrical or software constraints.

• Highly Trainable & Resourceful: You are comfortable researching unfamiliar manufacturing processes or components and welcome technical feedback to sharpen your skills.

• Detail-Oriented & Organized: You take pride in clean models, organized CAD structures, and robust documentation.