Chief Machine Development Engineer

Role Summary

We're hiring a Chief Machine Development Engineer to own the design, build, and industrialization of our in-house production machines - from concept through mechanical, electrical, firmware, and controls integration, to a design that can be repeated reliably across every unit we build. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who has taken complex electromechanical systems from prototype to high-volume production and is ready to build and lead the multi-disciplinary engineering team that will deliver it.

Core Responsibilities

• Own the requirements-to-architecture handoff - turn product and process requirements into a machine architecture, with a concept, risk plan, prototype plan, and production plan, while owning the interfaces to both the product and the plant

• Lead design through prototype and into high-volume production - drive design reviews grounded in physics and failure modes, get hardware built and tested in our shop, and take machines from first article through a drawing package that can be repeated at every site

• Build and lead the machine engineering organization - hire and structure mechanical, structural, electrical, and process engineers, designers, analysts, and build technicians, and set the standard the team designs to

• Own machine technology strategy and make-vs-buy - decide where to build in-house versus integrate off-the-shelf equipment, and feed a multi-year machine roadmap that leadership can plan and invest around

• Work directly alongside build technicians on the shop floor during prototype build, debug, and first-article support

• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, process, and controls leadership - including remote teammates - to integrate machine design into complete production systems

Required

• 15+ years designing and delivering complex electromechanical or process-equipment systems - mechanical engineering is the default spine, though equivalent depth from aerospace, automotive, capital equipment, or industrial automation is acceptable

• Proven track record taking hardware from prototype to production volume - not a one-off that stayed in the lab, and not a career spent only writing specs for someone else to design

• Integrated-systems fluency across mechanics, structures, electrical power/actuation, and thermal/fluids - you don't have to be the best specialist in any one discipline, but you know when it's on the critical path and how to lead it

• Track record leading multi-disciplinary design teams (mechanical, structural, electrical, and ideally process) through design, build, test, and revision

• First-principles design ability - can derive loads, power, heat, and cycle life on a whiteboard, then decide which analysis is worth running

• Comfort in the shop - has stood next to a prototype that wasn't working, found the real failure, and changed the design the same week

• High agency - doesn't wait for a perfect requirements document; interrogates the spec until it's buildable, then builds

• Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent; advanced degree is a plus but production track record matters more

• Effective communicator and collaborator in a distributed team environment - comfortable with async communication and remote teammates

• Flexible with schedule and hours; thrives in a startup environment where priorities shift and urgency is real

Nice-to-Have

• Background in advanced integrated systems - production machinery, transportation or aerospace structures and mechanisms, industrial robotics, or large-scale process equipment

• Deep experience in one complex process industry already in hand, with the ability to ramp quickly in adjacent ones

• Structural design of large frames and heavy equipment, and the civil/install interface that comes with it

• Electrical power and drive-system literacy at the machine level (servo and induction, cabinets, safety, grounding) - enough to lead electrical engineers rather than hand off work at a wall

• Process-equipment literacy - vessels, heat transfer, sealing, materials of construction

• PLM and configuration control discipline - making revision 12 cheaper than revision 1

• Track record hitting first-unit dates and unit-cost targets on large capital equipment

Additional

• Willingness to travel as needed for vendor visits, factory acceptance testing, and on-site equipment commissioning

• Comfort with a startup pace - this role demands flexibility, self-direction, and a bias toward getting things done over waiting for perfect conditions