Founding Mechanical Engineer

We are looking for a Founding Mechanical Engineer with 4+ years of experience to help define how the world's leading space, defense, manufacturing, and robotics companies evaluate their next generation of mechanical talent. You'll be a CAD-focused design engineer with broad mechanical engineering foundations, ideally coming from a Series A–E startup or defense prime in the aerospace and defense space. You'll work directly with mechanical leads across disciplines — propulsion, thermal, structural — to deeply understand their workflows and translate that knowledge into scalable, real-world engineering assessments. This is a rare opportunity to shape what great mechanical engineering looks like at an early-stage company transforming how hardtech teams hire.

What will you be doing?

• Building and owning the Mechanical Space & Defense Taxonomy — mapping the full landscape of mechanical engineering roles, required skills, and how to evaluate them through remote, online assessments
• Conducting intake conversations with mechanical leads (thermal, propulsion, structural) at client companies to understand their work, goals, and what great talent looks like to them
• Designing CAD-based assessment tasks across SolidWorks, OnShape, and Autodesk that reflect real engineering workflows and capture true engineering judgment
• Creating transition guides and resources that help candidates with different CAD backgrounds apply their skills across platforms
• Translating domain expertise into deterministic scoring rubrics and structured evaluation criteria that scale across clients