Senior Mechanical & Structural Engineer, Flight Hardware

Destinus; Katwijk; On-site; EUR 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Destinus seeks a hands-on Mechanical Engineer to own the mechanical design from CAD through hardware, including structure, packaging, and CG constraints. You will perform structural and stiffness analysis using hand calcs and FEA for flight loads, and lead mechanical and thermal integration at vehicle level.

You will plan and execute structural, vibration, and environmental test campaigns, analyze results, and feed findings back into design, while managing suppliers and manufacturing

Qualifications

• BSc, MSc, or PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in mechanical design of flight hardware such as missiles, spacecraft, aircraft, or comparable high-performance systems.
• Strong hands-on CAD experience with SolidWorks, CATIA, or similar tools.
• Strong structural analysis capability, including hand calculations and FEA.
• Practical experience planning and running structural, vibration, or environmental tests and interpreting the resulting data.
• Experience designing highly constrained systems around mass, packaging, structural, and centre-of-gravity requirements.

Responsibilities

• Own the mechanical design, producing and maintaining CAD for the structure and vehicle layout while managing subsystem packaging, mass, and centre-of-gravity constraints
• Perform structural and stiffness analysis using hand calculations and FEA for flight loads, storage, handling, and environmental conditions
• Own mechanical and thermal integration at vehicle level, coordinating interfaces with the specialists responsible for individual subsystems
• Plan and execute structural, vibration, and environmental test campaigns, including test articles, fixtures, procedures, and results
• Analyse test data, correlate results against structural models and requirements, and feed findings directly back into the design
• Manage mechanical suppliers, drawings, tolerances, manufacturing requirements, and externally produced components

Skills

CAD

Structural analysis

FEA

Test planning

Mass & CG analysis

Mechanical design leadership

Education

BSc in Mechanical Engineering

MSc in Aerospace Engineering

PhD in Mechanical/Aerospace

Tools

SolidWorks

CATIA

Job description

Destinus seeks a hands-on Mechanical Engineer to own the mechanical design from CAD through hardware, including structure, packaging, and CG constraints. You will perform structural and stiffness analysis using hand calcs and FEA for flight loads, and lead mechanical and thermal integration at vehicle level.

You will plan and execute structural, vibration, and environmental test campaigns, analyze results, and feed findings back into design, while managing suppliers and manufacturing