Senior Materials Engineer

Mainspring Energy•Menlo Park, CA

7d•Onsite

About The Position

Mainspring Energy is revolutionizing power generation with the worldâs most flexible and adaptable local power generation technology, the Mainspring Linear Generator. Commercial, industrial, and utility leaders are choosing Mainspring over traditional options like engines, turbines, and fuel cells to quickly and reliably deliver local power for EV charging, commercial facilities, data centers, and grid-scale operations. The Mainspring Linear Generator is fuel flexible, ramps up and down to meet demand, and utilizes a flameless reaction with near-zero NOx emissions. Backed by top-tier investors including Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, American Electric Power, Lightrock, and General Catalyst Mainspring designs, manufactures and delivers its products to customers across the U.S. today, and weâre quickly scaling for international expansion. Inspired by our vision of the affordable, reliable, net-zero carbon grid, Mainspring is rapidly expanding within the $816B global electricity equipment market, and weâre hiring the best talent to meet growing customer demand around the globe. We welcome a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, and talents to bring fresh perspectives and ongoing innovation to our customers. We are looking to build relationships with people who share our values: Pragmatic Optimism. Building a new category of world-class power generation requires the optimism of ambition and creativity, balanced with practicality to solve problems efficiently. The challenges that arise are opportunities for growth. Excellence without Ego. We bring expertise and commitment to creating the best customer experience, from sales to deployment and service, just as we apply deep technical rigor to building and delivering world-class products. We strive for excellence and behave as leaders with the humility to acknowledge our challenges, both collectively and as individual contributors. Proactive Collaboration. The integration and cross-disciplinary nature of Mainspringâs business requires intentionally seeking out others who bring different skills, perspectives, and priorities. Our culture of inclusion and respect extends beyond our team to interactions with our partners and customers. More information can be found at www.mainspringenergy.com We have a high-impact opportunity for a Materials and Process Engineer who wants to join a world-class engineering team and help scale production of the Linear Generator. The materials and process team at Mainspring Energy works on complex development projects which are at the intersection of properties, performance and processing of a wide range of materials â non ferrous, ferrous, coatings, graphite, polymers etc. In this role, you will develop reliable cost effective materials solutions and manage existing solutions through validation testing, process development and deployment on an actual part/subassembly. This is a great opportunity to be part of cross functional projects and collaborate with multiple teams such as Supply chain, Quality, Reliability, Design and Production.

Requirements

MS in Materials Science/Engineering or Mechanical Engineering.
MS + 5 years or PhD + 3 years of industry experience.
Deep understanding of isostatic graphite structure, properties and performance, including graphite manufacturing processes.
Fundamental understanding of properties and performance of engineering materials, and basic knowledge of structure-property relationships.
Working knowledge and experience with FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis).
Demonstrated experience with statistical data analysis and reporting (Matlab/Python, Google Sheets/Excel, Weibull++, etc.).
Excellent communication skills, adaptable self-starter, enjoys collaboration in a fast-paced environment

Nice To Haves

Experience with volume production of graphite components is highly preferred.
Knowledge of dry (solid lubrication) tribology relative to ceramic or graphite materials is highly preferred..

Responsibilities

Lead independent process development and material validation of graphite components and tribological systems in the Linear Generator.
Collaborate with other members of the Materials and Engineering teams to characterize graphite properties, identify failure modes, and execute validation tests to meet reliability requirements.
Create, develop, and optimize material and process specifications related to graphite and other mechanical components.
Write specifications, process control, and quality control plans for graphite and other mechanical components
Collaborate with other teams such as mechanical design, supply chain and quality to qualify processes and establish key process controls at manufacturing locations.
Participate in FMEA for design, process, and maintenance.
Support the Materials and Process team with failure analysis and process development projects in other areas.