Senior Mechanical Design Engineer

Castelion; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 95,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in defense manufacturing seeks a Senior Mechanical Design Engineer to join their rapidly growing team. This role involves designing critical flight structures and mechanisms for hypersonic vehicles ensuring high-performance, mass-constrained hardware in a fast-paced environment. The ideal candidate will possess significant experience in delivering complex mechanical designs from concept to production.

Benefits

Long-term stock incentives

Comprehensive medical, vision, and dental insurance

Three weeks of paid time off per year

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional mechanical engineering experience.
• Experience in full cycle development ownership.
• Ability to design manufacturable components optimized for weight and cost.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, build, and integration of key flight vehicle components.
• Design and deliver mission-critical hardware.
• Support iterative prototyping cycles every four weeks.

Skills

CAD design

thermal analysis

structural analysis

tolerance stack up analysis

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering

Job description

Direct message the job poster from Castelion

Scaling an A+ Team | Series A Startup Driving a Critical Mission | Join Our Rapid Growth Journey

About Castelion

Castelion is bringing a new approach to defense development and production: one that focuses on short, iterative design cycles, rapid testing in development, and modern commercial manufacturing strategies for production at scale. We’re designing, building, and testing next generation long range strike weapons systems to give America and its Allies a definitive edge and deter future conflicts.

Senior Mechanical Design Engineer

Castelion is seeking a high output Senior Mechanical Design Engineer with a full stack, Responsible Engineer mindset and experience shipping flight hardware. This person will be responsible for critical flight structures and mechanism design and build efforts for Castelion’s hypersonic vehicles. The Senior Mechanical Engineer will work closely with a fast-moving team of peers and engineering leadership to ensure mission-critical hardware is delivered on time and meets demanding technical performance. A successful candidate will have significant experience delivering high-performance, mass-constrained hardware in a rapid development environment.

Responsibilities

• Design and Deliver Mission-Critical Hardware - Lead the design, build, and integration of key flight vehicle components such as composite tanks, separation mechanisms, actuators, and control surfaces. Own your systems from concept to flight. Apply fundamentals in statics, dynamics, and modal analysis to justify designs—and prove them in test and flight.
• Drive High-Cadence Design Iteration - Support iterative prototyping cycles every four weeks for key subsystems. Engage in cross-functional design reviews, integrate test feedback rapidly, and evolve hardware through fast-paced learning loops.
• Build and Maintain Engineering Rigor - Contribute to the development of engineering best practices at Castelion, including CAD standards, documentation practices, and hardware management protocols. Write build documentation and collaborate hands-on with technicians during integration and assembly.

Basic Qualifications

• Educational Background: Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with 5+ years of professional ME experience.
• Technical Skills: This role requires broad mechanical domain knowledge, including detailed CAD design of complex parts, tolerance stack up analysis, thermal analysis, structural analysis, and deign-to-cost.
• Flight-Ready Hardware: Experience designing elegant, manufacturable components optimized for weight, cost, and simplicity; familiarity with coatings, finishes, and composite structures
• Full Cycle Development Ownership. Experience bringing hardware designs from initial concept to implementation, production, and successful operations. Ability to maximize speed and value from vendors for company goals during vendor visits or joint development efforts.

All employees are granted long-term stock incentives as part of their employment as Castelion. All employees receive access to comprehensive medial, vision, and dental insurance, and the company offers three weeks of paid time off per year.

Leadership Qualities

Bias to Action and Creative Problem Solving. Desire and experience questioning assumptions in ways that lead to break through ideas that are ultimately implemented. Successfully bring in applicable processes/concepts/materials from other industries to achieve efficiency gains. Ability to personally resolve minor issues in development without requiring significant support.

High Commitment, High Initiative. A successful candidate will have a genuine passion for Castelion’s mission and consistently look for ways to contribute to the company’s technical goals and prevent hardware blockers. Ability to work in a fast paced, autonomously driven, and demanding atmosphere. Strong sense of accountability and integrity.

Clear Communicator. Proactively communicates blockers. Trusted in previous roles to be voice of company with regulators, suppliers, gate keepers and customers. Capable of tactfully managing relationships with stakeholders to achieve company-desired outcomes without compromising relationships. Emails, IMs and verbal interactions are logical, drive clarity, and detailed enough to eliminate ambiguity.

• To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Employment with Castelion is governed on the basis of competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Engineering, Manufacturing, and Project Management

• Industries

  Defense and Space Manufacturing, Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing, and Manufacturing

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