Mechanical Engineer - Airframes & Mechanisms

Askari Defense • Atlanta, GA

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About The Position

As a Mechanical Engineer for Airframes and Mechanisms, you will own the mechanical architecture, design, build, and flight validation of new airframes and mechanical systems for our high-performance UAS intercept platforms. You will turn evolving mission requirements and vehicle concepts into real hardware: compact mechanisms, structural load paths, subsystem packaging, mechanical interfaces, fixtures, and manufacturable airframes that survive field handling, vibration, launch, flight loads, and repeated iteration. This role is for an incredibly first-principles engineer who is equal parts mechanisms designer and hands-on builder. You move quickly across the full loop, from trade study to design, build, test, and validation, and you upgrade your first-principles models the moment the data demands more fidelity. You make hard structural and packaging trades, create elegant solutions under severe constraints, and personally build and test the hardware. You thrive in early ambiguity, cutting through the noise to find the few constraints that actually matter, and you prioritize physical reality over opinion. Above all, you have a track record of novel mechanical system design. You have personally taken complex physical systems from concept through CAD, prototyping, test, failure analysis, and real-world validation. Ideally, you spend your free time building drones, airplanes, robots, mechanisms, or strange machines because you cannot help yourself. Passion coupled with engineering mastery are the two most important things we are looking for. You will spearhead airframe and mechanisms development, working with the aerodynamics, rotorcraft, GNC, perception, electrical, and manufacturing teams to integrate their subsystems into coherent, rugged, flight-proven vehicles.

Requirements

• You have personally brought a complex mechanical system from concept through design, CAD, prototyping, test, failure analysis, and real-world validation.
• You are an incredibly first-principles engineer who moves fast: you drive rapidly from trade study to design, build, test, and validation, simplify problems to the few constraints that actually matter, and upgrade your first-principles models as the system becomes better understood.
• 6+ years of professional or equivalent hands-on experience in mechanical, mechanism, airframe, robotics, or aerospace hardware design, including serious hobbyist and personal-build experience, which we weight heavily.
• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, or a related engineering discipline, or equivalent demonstrated ability.
• Strong experience designing mechanisms, linkages, joints, hinges, latches, flexures, and compact moving assemblies under real-world constraints.
• Strong proficiency in 3D CAD for complex mechanical assemblies, including Fusion 360, Siemens NX, CATIA, Onshape, SolidWorks, or similar tools.
• Strong proficiency in FEA and first-principles structural analysis, including load paths, stress, vibration, shock, stiffness, buckling, fatigue, and failure modes, using Ansys, Abaqus, Nastran, Fusion Simulation, or similar tools.
• Experience designing hardware for rapid fabrication and eventual scale, including additive manufacturing, CNC machining, sheet metal, carbon fiber and fiberglass composites, thermoplastics including ASA and ABS, fasteners, and assembly processes.
• Extensive hands-on fabrication experience, including machining, 3D printing, carbon fiber and fiberglass composites, thermoplastics including ASA and ABS, hand tools, mechanical assembly, and field repair.
• Experience designing flexures and compliant mechanisms, including flexures printed on FDM and SLA machines.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, or a related engineering discipline.
• Multirotor, fixed-wing, missile, loitering munition, racing drone, or other small air vehicle mechanical design experience.
• Experience designing compact, lightweight, deployable, or highly packaged mechanical systems for aerospace, robotics, or defense.
• Racing-drone or multirotor design, build, tuning, and crash-repair experience.
• Experience building robots, autonomous systems, end-effectors, or rugged electromechanical hardware.
• Rapid-prototyping fluency across additive and subtractive methods and their material tradeoffs, including FDM, SLA, CNC, and laser cutting.
• Carbon fiber and fiberglass composite structures, bonded assemblies, and lightweight, high-stiffness mechanical design.
• Experience designing mechanical test setups, including load fixtures, vibration, drop, abuse, and environmental tests.
• Experience building analysis tooling, including AI/LLMs, Python, MATLAB, or simulation workflows, to accelerate design and iteration.
• Experience developing fielded defense or aerospace vehicles where ruggedness, flight performance, and speed matter more than presentation-quality CAD.
• Excellent Interpersonal Skills: This is a highly interdisciplinary role requiring constant interface with the aerodynamics, rotorcraft, GNC, perception, electrical, and manufacturing teams to understand and integrate subsystem needs.

Responsibilities

• Own mechanical architecture for new airframes and vehicle configurations, from clean-sheet layout and first-principles trades through CAD, prototyping, bench test, flight test, and iteration.
• Design compact, rugged airframe structures and mechanisms, including linkages, hinges, latches, retention features, printed flexures, and deployables, that survive real handling, transport, vibration, launch, and flight loads.
• Package motors, propellers, batteries, avionics, sensors, wiring, compute, and thermal paths under aggressive size, weight, and performance constraints.
• Perform FEA, hand calculations, load-path development, tolerance stackups, and failure-mode analysis to ensure hardware survives real-world loads.
• Produce high-quality CAD, drawings, mechanisms, fixtures, and test articles that can be rapidly manufactured, assembled, inspected, and iterated.
• Translate mechanical and performance targets into manufacturable hardware, accounting for materials, fabrication methods, assembly sequence, and scale-up.
• Prototype quickly, test aggressively, break hardware, diagnose failures, and turn real data into the next design revision.
• Integrate subsystems from the aerodynamics, rotorcraft, GNC, perception, electrical, and manufacturing teams into robust, serviceable vehicles.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior