Staff Mechanical Design Engineer

Quantum Leap Energy • ,

3d • Remote

About The Position

We’re looking for a Staff Mechanical Design Engineer experienced in working in an NQA-1 environment to join our Engineering team. In this role you’ll own the mechanism design at the heart of QLE’s proprietary isotope separation technology – the moving assemblies, actuation, and precision hardware the process depends on – and you’ll make those designs safe through the choices built into them rather than through the controls wrapped around them. This is a high-impact opportunity to shape first-of-a-kind hardware at the stage where inherent safety is still a design variable rather than a retrofit. You’ll act as a key design authority at the center of concurrent simulation and experimental workstreams, holding a single design basis that every team can analyze, test, and build against. The role is remote, with limited travel a few times per year.

Requirements

• 8-10+ years of progressive experience in mechanical design, with a demonstrated portfolio of mechanisms and precision assemblies taken from concept to working hardware in regulated or high-consequence industries (Nuclear, Aerospace, Defense, Semiconductor, Medical Devices).
• Mechanism Design Authority: Kinematic design, load path definition, and mechanism synthesis for repeatable, life-limited motion.
• Tolerance stack-up analysis and fluency in ASME Y14.5 (GD&T) for precision assemblies.
• Selection and integration of bearings, drives, actuators, and dynamic seals, with material selection informed by wear, galling, fatigue, and environment.
• Safety by Design: Demonstrable experience designing hazards out at source – applying the hierarchy of controls, passive and fail-safe design, and participating in HAZOP, FMEA, or equivalent safety assessments.
• Design Tools: Expert in 3D CAD (e.g. SolidWorks/Inventor/CREO) and disciplined in PDM/PLM data management.
• Concurrent Engineering: Proven track record working alongside simulation and experimental teams, supporting parallel workstreams that draw different requirements from a shared design basis.
• Process Literacy: Able to read, mark up, and contribute to PFDs and P&IDs, and to understand where a mechanism sits within the wider process system.
• Hands-On Instinct: Comfortable in a shop, lab, or test facility during site visits, able to physically troubleshoot hardware and lead root cause analysis when first-of-a-kind mechanisms fail.
• Communicator: Ability to thrive in a multi-disciplinary environment, effectively communicating complex engineering concepts to scientists, analysts, project managers, and technicians.
• Self-Directed: Capable of managing complex technical workstreams with minimal oversight in a remote setting, reporting directly to the Head of Engineering.
• Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering or a related field.

Nice To Haves

• Nuclear Framework Experience (strongly preferred): Design experience within a nuclear regulatory and quality framework – for example NRC, ONR, or IAEA-aligned regimes – including work governed by ASME NQA-1, 10 CFR 50 Appendix B, or an equivalent safety case and design substantiation process.
• Criticality Safety: Familiarity with criticality safety by geometry and the design constraints it imposes on vessel and mechanism layout.
• Remote Handling & Maintainability: Experience designing for gloveboxes, hot cells, shielded environments, or remote maintenance and decontamination.
• Master’s Degree or PhD in Mechanical Engineering or Physics.
• Professional Engineer (PE) License.
• Hands-on experience with Finite Element Analysis (FEA) or CFD packages (e.g. ANSYS, COMSOL, STAR-CCM+), sufficient to interrogate and challenge analysis results.
• Experience with High Vacuum (HV/UHV), cryogenics, or aggressive/corrosive chemical environments, including gaseous halide media.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) or process improvement (e.g., Lean Six Sigma) certifications are a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own the detailed 3D CAD baseline for mechanisms and precision assemblies – models, sub-assemblies, drawings, and released documentation – from concept through to manufacture.
• Design motion-critical hardware: kinematics and load paths, actuation and drive selection, bearings, seals, linkages, and end-stops, sized against duty cycle, wear, backlash, and service life.
• Drive tolerance stack-up analysis and GD&T (ASME Y14.5) so that alignment, repeatability, and assembly are achieved by dimensioning rather than by fitting on the bench.
• Design parts that can be made, assembled, inspected, and maintained – including in constrained, shielded, or remotely handled environments.
• Maintain disciplined PDM/PLM practice – revision control, release states, and change records – so every downstream team has an unambiguous version to work from.
• Contribute to and maintain Process Flow Diagrams (PFDs) and Piping & Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) where mechanisms interface with process systems.
• Apply the hierarchy of controls at the concept stage, eliminating or reducing hazards through inherent design choice – geometry, materials, mass, stored-energy limits, and separation – in preference to active engineered or administrative controls.
• Use passive and geometric means to bound the consequences of failure: safe-by-geometry configurations, limited inventories, passive heat removal paths, and physical constraints that make the unsafe state unreachable.
• Define the de-energized state of every mechanism. Loss of power, air, signal, or operator attention should leave hardware in a known safe position, with mechanical interlocks and poka-yoke preferred over software dependency.
• Generate the design evidence supporting hazard identification and safety assessment (HAZOP, FMEA, criticality and ALARP arguments), and drive the resulting actions back into the CAD baseline rather than into a procedure.
• Ensure designs meet relevant codes – ASME Y14.5, and ASME BPVC / B31.3 where pressure boundaries are involved – alongside nuclear quality and safety expectations such as ASME NQA-1 and defense-in-depth principles.
• Maintain a single controlled geometric and requirements baseline that simulation, experimental, and manufacturing teams all work from, so concurrent activity stays traceable to one revision.
• Prepare, defeature, and issue geometry for FEA, CFD, thermal, and neutronics analysis; agree boundary conditions and modeling assumptions up front; and translate analysis outcomes into design changes.
• Design rigs, fixtures, and test articles for experimental teams, ensuring test hardware is representative of the analyzed configuration and that instrumentation access is designed in from the start.
• Manage the reality that simulation, experiment, and production each need something different from the same basis – a simplified geometry, an instrumented one, a manufacturable one – and keep those variants deliberate, documented, and reconciled rather than divergent.
• Run design reviews and change impact assessments so a revision propagates cleanly to every concurrent workstream without silently invalidating an in-flight analysis or test campaign.
• Collaborate with physicists and process engineers to translate theoretical and process requirements into manufacturable hardware.
• Qualify suppliers, review shop drawings and weld procedures, and support first article inspection and Factory Acceptance Testing.
• Mentor engineers in mechanism design, GD&T, safety-by-design thinking, and root-cause troubleshooting.
• Operate effectively within a distributed team – documenting decisions, communicating asynchronously, and keeping the design record self-explanatory.

Benefits

• Competitive base salary aligned to global compensation bands and local market data.
• Bonus eligibility: Target % based on level and impact.
• Equity participation: Reflecting your contribution to QLE’s long-term success.
• Comprehensive benefits package and opportunities for global mobility across US, UK, and SA operations.

What This Job Offers

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