Mechanical Engineer

Foundational Industries

13d•Onsite

About The Position

Foundational is building a network of AI-native, autonomous factories for modern contract manufacturing — reshoring critical supply chains so companies can produce high-quality products domestically, quickly, and at competitive cost. Recent breakthroughs in robotics and physical AI have shifted autonomous manufacturing from theoretical to deployable, and we're focused on operationalizing these capabilities at scale during a decisive decade for American industrial leadership. At Foundational, we're building with people who want to own something — to do work that matters, in an environment where what you ship is what counts. The people who thrive here: Take ownership before they're asked. They see the gap and close it. Operate with a high degree of judgment. We move fast, and good judgment travels farther than a playbook. Communicate directly — concise, clear, and candid, especially when stakes are high. Hold a high bar for themselves first, then for everyone around them. Are genuinely energized by hard problems in physical, real-world environments. Energized — not just interested. Stay effective when things are ambiguous, changing, or under pressure. That's the job. This is a place for people who want to build something that has never existed before and leave a clear mark on it.

Requirements

5+ years of mechanical design of fabricated, welded, or precision-machined structures and assemblies with real structural requirements.
FEA proficiency (static, buckling, basic dynamics) and the judgment to know when hand calculations suffice.
Deep sheet metal, weldment, and machined-part DFM: process constraints, distortion, and fixturing.
GD&T to ASME Y14.5, including stack-up analysis on multi-part assemblies.
CAD mastery (Fusion preferred), including large-assembly management and drawing release discipline.

Nice To Haves

Shock, vibration, or environmental qualification experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Own the mechanical design integrity of Foundational’s products: structural performance under real-world loads, tolerance stacks that guarantee fit and function across multi-part assemblies, and fabrication-ready drawings the floor can build at rate.
Complete fabrication drawing packages — GD&T, weld callouts, finish callouts — released for the active product line from customer and reference geometry.
Complete structural analysis baseline for the governing load cases — static, handling, and transport — with margins documented.
Validate tolerance stack analyses against first articles for the critical interfaces, with corrective design or process changes closed.
Optimize designs with Manufacturing Engineering for distortion control, fixturing, and assembly at rate.
Achieve products structurally qualified with customer-ready analysis and physical test reports.
Implement design-for-rate improvements — part count, weld length, setup reduction — delivering measurable cost reduction against the factory model.
Assess design impact of next-generation product variants with tooling implications quantified.
Stand up a manufacturing engineering function from scratch — routings, fixtures, work instructions, the line itself — and run it yourself until there’s a team to hand it off to.