Mechanical Engineer for AI Research Initiative

SaidGig; New York (NY); Remote; USD 99,000 - 165,000; Part time

Job summary

SaidGig is seeking a seasoned mechanical engineer for a remote, hourly role focused on evaluating and improving how complex hardware and AI research problems are approached. You will apply practical hands-on experience with production hardware to assess designs, analyses, testing workflows, and failure modes.

Responsibilities include reviewing designs, simulations, test methods, and troubleshooting approaches; evaluating trade-offs in structures, thermal, dynamics, and manufacturability; and

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional mechanical engineering experience with hands-on hardware work.
• Responsible engineer for physical hardware lifecycle ownership.
• Deep expertise in structural or thermal or dynamics and controls areas.
• Proficient in CAD/CAE, FEA/CFD, and testing instrumentation.
• Experience in aerospace, defense, automotive, electronics, robotics domains.

Responsibilities

• Apply hands-on mechanical engineering expertise to complex hardware work.
• Review designs, analyses, simulations, test methods, and troubleshooting.
• Evaluate trade-offs in structures, thermal, dynamics, and manufacturability.
• Assess practicality and outcomes of solutions to real-world problems.
• Identify assumptions, boundary conditions, design gaps, and risks.
• Develop engineering problems, reference solutions, and evaluation criteria.
• Use design, simulation, prototyping, hardware integration, and testing.
• Provide clear, technically grounded feedback based on principles.

Skills

Hands-on mechanical engineering

Hardware development experience

Clear communication of technicalDec

Failure-mode analysis

Root-cause analysis

Tools

CAD/CAE tools

FEA

CFD

Dynamics simulation

Data acquisition

Job description

Bring hands‑on mechanical engineering judgment to advanced hardware engineering and AI research. This remote, hourly role focuses on evaluating and improving how complex physical systems are designed, analyzed, tested, and troubleshot.

Role Overview

You will apply practical experience with production hardware and electromechanical systems to assess technical designs, analyses, testing workflows, failure modes, and engineering solutions. Relevant backgrounds include structural and stress engineering, thermal engineering, mechanical design engineering, and dynamics and controls engineering.

Key Responsibilities

• Apply hands‑on mechanical engineering expertise to technically complex work involving physical products and systems.
• Review mechanical designs, engineering analyses, simulation results, test methods, and troubleshooting approaches.
• Evaluate trade‑offs across structures, materials, thermal performance, mechanical design, dynamics, vibration, controls, reliability, and manufacturability.
• Assess the technical accuracy and practical feasibility of solutions to real‑world mechanical engineering problems.
• Identify incorrect assumptions, unrealistic boundary conditions, design gaps, failure modes, implementation risks, and reliability risks.
• Develop or review rigorous engineering problems, reference solutions, evaluation criteria, and supporting technical documentation.
• Use experience in design, simulation, prototyping, hardware integration, testing, validation, qualification, debugging, and manufacturing.
• Provide clear, technically grounded feedback based on established engineering principles and real‑world practice.

Qualifications

• At least 5 years of professional mechanical engineering experience, including at least 3 recent years of actively hands‑on work in hardware development, analysis, testing, validation, integration, bring‑up, or troubleshooting. Experience limited to program or people management does not meet this requirement.
• Experience serving as the responsible engineer for physical hardware or systems and owning meaningful portions of the lifecycle, from requirements and analysis through design, prototyping, testing, validation, qualification, and manufacturing readiness.
• Deep expertise in at least one core area: structural or stress analysis and FEA; thermal analysis, heat transfer, and thermal management; mechanical design and product development; or dynamics, vibration, mechanisms, and controls.
• Strong working knowledge of materials, loads and boundary conditions, structural margins, fatigue, thermal constraints, tolerances and GD&T, component selection, reliability, manufacturability, system integration, and failure‑mode analysis.
• Extensive practical experience analyzing, testing, debugging, and validating hardware using tools such as CAD and CAE, FEA, CFD or thermal simulation, dynamics or controls simulation, test instrumentation, data acquisition, and structured root‑cause analysis.
• Experience developing hardware in product or manufacturing environments, ideally in aerospace and defense, space, automotive and EV, semiconductors, consumer electronics, robotics and eVTOL, industrial and energy, or medical devices.
• Ability to clearly explain technical decisions, design trade‑offs, test findings, and failure mechanisms.

Preferred Background

Experience at an organization that designs, builds, tests, and manufactures physical hardware products or systems is strongly preferred. Relevant experience may come from organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, Boeing, General Atomics, L3Harris, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Honeywell Aerospace, Textron, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Firefly Aerospace, Sierra Space, Astranis, Planet, Maxar, Axiom Space, Tesla, Rivian, General Motors, Ford, Lucid, Waymo, Zoox, Aptiv, Bosch, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Intel, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Marvell, Micron, NXP, Infineon, Apple, Google Hardware, Meta Reality Labs, Microsoft Devices, Amazon, Samsung, Garmin, Sonos, Skydio, Shield AI, Zipline, Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation, Boston Dynamics, Figure, Agility Robotics, Wing, Siemens, GE Aerospace, GE Vernova, ABB, Schneider Electric, Rockwell Automation, Enphase, Medtronic, and Intuitive Surgical. Candidates from comparable hardware‑focused organizations are encouraged to apply.

Work Terms

Remote engagement. Hourly work with flexible engagement structures.

Compensation

$100 to $120 per hour.

Opportunity

Contribute to challenging work at the intersection of advanced hardware engineering and AI research, helping improve AI reasoning about mechanical design, structural analysis, thermal systems, dynamics, controls, testing, and hardware troubleshooting. The work values first‑principles technical judgment and practical industry experience.