Mechanical Engineer - Equipment Design

About Airbound

Our mission is to make a world where everyone has access to delivery. Where goods move as freely as information moves today.

This is possible. Today the cost of moving on a scooter is ₹2/km. That’s the cost of moving a 150kg mass from point A to B. We’re bringing that mass down to less than 5kgs, concurrently bringing the cost down to 10 paise/km. This is how we make deliveries a reality. This is how we create a world where we’re doing billions of deliveries per day.

The tech is not there. The current cost of drone delivery is ₹100/km. We need to completely redefine the way things are done here. We’re building the world’s most efficient aircraft from the ground-up, and scaling that up to beyond anything the aerospace sector has ever seen. This cannot be an iterative process. We have to tear down all conventions and build everything up from scratch.

To do this, we need nothing less than the best engineers. The ones who care about building something fundamentally different, who are deeply curious about understanding the fundamentals of everything they’re working on, who are dreamers that believe in the impossible.

About Hardware Engineering

Hardware Engineering owns the aircraft's physical development, from a concept sketch to a part that flies. This spans system design, mechanism design, and structural design: working out how something moves, what it's made of, and whether it holds up under real load. Because most of what we design is custom, it also means designing the equipment we use to prove our work — rigs, jigs, and testers built specifically to validate a design before it goes anywhere near a real flight. It's one team across concept, design, initial prototyping, and test: the full arc of getting a product from an idea to something that ships.

About the Role

In this hands-on role, you will design, build, and commission the physical test equipment that our flight, structures, and systems teams depend on to validate the aircraft systems. You will take a test requirement and turn it into a piece of equipment that does that safely, reliably, and repeatably, in real conditions. This is a role for someone who thinks like an equipment designer: someone who has built medium to large scale equipment that is used every day by other people and has a good balance on when to have a scrappy solution vs. a robust, reliable one.

Key Responsibilities

Test Equipment Design

• Design aircraft system functional and performance testers for all-weather conditions

• Develop vibration and life-cycle testers for aircraft system validation

• Engineer extreme weather simulators for drone systems

Build & Commissioning

• Integrate System End-of-Line (EOL) tests for hardware systems for flight qualification

• Take equipment from concept through prototyping, sourcing/ordering, fabrication, assembly, and commissioning

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with R&D, Reliability, Flight Systems, Manufacturing, and Operations to define and develop specs to meet test requirements

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 5+ years in mechanical/equipment design, test engineering, or fixture/tooling design, ideally including equipment that involves stored energy, motion, or human-safety considerations (industrial machinery, automation equipment)

• Strong hands-on CAD skills for equipment design - full assemblies including mechanisms, structures, and fixturing, including sheet metal and machined parts

• Track record of taking equipment from concept through prototyping, sourcing/ordering, fabrication, assembly, and commissioning

• Experience with some form of actuation mechanisms, energy storage and release systems (spring, pneumatic, elastic, or similar), rails/guides, and controlled deceleration or arrest systems

• Demonstrated understanding of safety margins, system safety, and human safety practices around equipment that stores or releases significant energy

• Practical experience designing for outdoor/weatherproof operation, and the judgment to know what will and won't hold up over time

• Basic project management skills — able to scope, plan, and run your own projects with minimal oversight

• Comfortable being the one who fixes issues on live test setups as they come up, in the field, under time pressure

Good to Have

• Experience with load testing / structural test rigs and associated instrumentation

• Experience designing for UAVs, aerospace hardware, or other safety-critical mechanical systems

• Experience working with vendors/fabricators in India for rapid turnaround builds

• Familiarity with relevant safety standards for test equipment or machinery

Work location: Hoskote, Bangalore (Headquarters)

What We Offer

• Comprehensive health insurance to keep you and your loved ones covered

• Relocation assistance and a daily travel stipend to ease your commute

• Advanced salary credit to support you when you need it

“A driven, passionate team where you’ll have room to grow and thrive - this is more than just a job, it’s a rare opportunity to build something meaningful from the ground up”

Work Schedule:

• In-office role, working alternate Saturdays.

Ready to take off?

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