Principal Mechanical Engineer

Mainspring Energy; Menlo Park (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Onsite at Menlo Park HQ

Job summary

Mainspring Energy is seeking a Principal Mechanical Engineer to serve as a company-level technical authority for the Linear Generator platform. You will shape long-term technical direction, influence architecture, and guide high-stakes decisions across teams.

The role requires broad leadership across multiple domains, autonomy to advise senior leadership, and the ability to create durable technical leverage that improves product capability, reliability, and manufacturability.

Qualifications

• Proven track record solving high-consequence mechanical problems in critical domains.
• Ability to shape technical direction across major systems or organizations.
• Strong judgment balancing capability, reliability, cost, scalability and safety.
• Experience guiding senior leaders on strategic technical decisions.
• Proven ability to develop standards, methods, and risk approaches across teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead company-critical technical direction in a mechanical domain with high ambiguity and cross-functional impact.
• Define or influence architecture, design principles, standards, and long-term product direction.
• Solve unprecedented engineering problems where existing methods fall short.
• Advise senior leadership on technical decisions with long-term consequences.
• Define learning strategies for high-consequence decisions and knowledge capture.

Skills

Technical leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Engineering judgment

Executive communication

Education

BS/MS/PhD Mechanical Engineering

Job description

Mainspring Energy manufactures and delivers fuel-flexible, low-emissions local power solutions that rapidly add new capacity and deliver reliable, affordable, and sustainable electric power. The company began commercial shipments of its Mainspring Linear Generators in 2020 and today has hundreds of megawatts in advanced development and field operations for leading Fortune 500 companies, data centers, and utilities. Mainspring also partners with global energy leaders including AEP, NextEra Energy Resources, Schneider Electric, and more.

The core values that ground our work, guide our decisions, and connect us together:

• Pragmatic Optimism
• Excellence without Ego

About the Role

Mainspring is seeking a Principal Mechanical Engineer to serve as a company-level technical authority in a critical mechanical engineering domain for our Linear Generator platform. In this role, you will shape long-term technical direction, define or strongly influence architecture and design principles, guide high-consequence technical decisions, and help the organization solve problems that are novel, ambiguous, and central to long-term product and business success.

This role is intended for engineers who have already demonstrated broad technical leadership across multiple teams, systems, or major program areas and are now ready to create durable company-level technical leverage. A strong candidate should be able to operate with exceptional autonomy, advise senior leadership, anticipate long-term technical and business risks, and create principles, standards, methods, or decision frameworks that improve how Mainspring approaches major classes of engineering problems.

Candidates who primarily shape technical direction across multiple teams or system areas may be better aligned to a Senior Staff Mechanical Engineer role. Principal-level candidates should bring rare technical judgment in a company-critical domain and demonstrate impact that extends beyond individual projects, teams, or near-term program execution

About Mainspring

The core values that ground our work, guide our decisions, and connect us together:

• Pragmatic Optimism
• Excellence without Ego
• Proactive Collaboration

Responsibilities

• Lead company-critical technical direction in a mechanical engineering domain with high ambiguity, high consequence, and broad cross-functional impact.
• Define or strongly influence technical architecture, design principles, standards, methods, and long-term product direction that affect product capability, reliability, cost, scalability, manufacturability, serviceability, and business outcomes.
• Solve the organization’s most difficult and unprecedented engineering problems, especially where existing methods, assumptions, or design approaches are insufficient.
• Advise senior leadership on technical decisions with long-term product, customer, operational, financial, or business consequences.
• Define evidence and learning strategies for high-consequence decisions, including the right mix of analysis, testing, modeling, field data, production learning, external expertise, and engineering judgment.
• Create durable organizational leverage through technical frameworks, review practices, architecture decisions, standards, methods, or risk approaches that improve how teams execute engineering work.

Qualifications

• BS, MS, or PhD in Mechanical Engineering or a similar engineering field, with a distinguished track record of solving high-consequence mechanical engineering problems in a company-critical domain.
• Demonstrated ability to shape technical direction across major systems, platforms, product areas, or organizations, not only within a single project or team.
• Exceptional mechanical engineering judgment, including the ability to balance product capability, reliability, cost, scalability, manufacturability, serviceability, safety, customer needs, and business priorities.
• Proven ability to solve novel, ambiguous, cross-functional problems where requirements, ownership, evidence, methods, or tradeoffs are not initially clear.
• Deep experience using analysis, testing, modeling, field learning, production learning, and engineering judgment to guide long-term technical strategy and high-consequence decisions.
• Strong executive-level communication and influence skills, including the ability to align senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders around technical strategy, risks, tradeoffs, and recommended direction.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience serving as a company-level technical authority, principal engineer, architect, or equivalent senior technical leader in a critical hardware domain.
• Experience developing hardware for energy systems, engines, generators, compressors, pumps, thermal systems, fluid systems, structures, high-cycle fatigue environments, precision alignment systems, electromechanical systems, or industrial equipment.
• Experience defining architecture, design principles, validation strategies, technical standards, risk frameworks, or engineering methods that improved execution across multiple teams or product generations.
• Experience influencing long-term product strategy, platform architecture, reliability strategy, production scalability, field performance, cost reduction, or serviceability at an organizational level.
• Experience advising senior leadership on technical investments, product tradeoffs, risk posture, technical debt, or long-term engineering strategy.
• Experience developing other senior technical leaders through design reviews, technical strategy work, decision frameworks, and high-quality engineering judgment.

We value collaboration and detailed evaluation of candidates’ work.

Note on resume This section has been condensed to remove application-specific instructions in refinement, but the emphasis remains on your substantive work and engineering contributions.

In more traditional words, Mainspring Energy, Inc is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.

This compensation and benefits information is based on Mainspring Energy's estimate as of the date of publication and may be modified in the future. We generally do not negotiate on salary once we have made an offer. The level of pay within the range will depend on a variety of job-related factors that may include location, relevant prior experience and/or education, or particular skills and expertise. New hires joining the company tend to be paid within the starting base pay range noted above, with opportunities to increase pay over time based on development of additional skills, competencies, and company-specific knowledge.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

This position is onsite at our Menlo Park HQ. The salary will be adjusted to reflect local market conditions based on employee location as well as the experience of the employee. Along with the base salary, Mainspring offers pre-IPO stock options + benefits.