Structural Engineer

Role details

Job Title

Structural Engineer

Location

Menlo Park, CA

Job Type

Full Time

Job Description

The Role

• You will develop composite and metallic vessel structures, make critical design decisions, validate those decisions through analysis and physical testing, and work directly with fabricators and engineering partners to bring hardware into operation.
• This is not a standalone analyst role. Structural analysis and FEA support rapid design decisions, while most of the work centers on hands-on design, fabrication, integration, troubleshooting, testing, and iteration.
• The role is best suited to an engineer who wants clean-sheet ownership, is comfortable with ambiguity, and is motivated by seeing hardware progress from a CAD model to sea trials.
• You will work closely with naval architecture, mechanical, actuation, offloading, and autonomy engineering disciplines. The focus is marine structural systems and the way structural loads and failures propagate through the vessel, not hull hydrodynamics.

Responsibilities

• Own vessel structural systems from initial layout and load definition through fabrication, testing, sea trials, and design iteration.
• Develop hull and structural layouts, scantlings and sizing, material selections, attachment strategies, and structural design-for-manufacturing decisions.
• Design lightweight, manufacturable composite and metallic structures, including primary structures, brackets, mounts, foundations, supports, stiffeners, interfaces, and attachment points.
• Evaluate FRP composite laminates and metallic structures, including relevant material behavior, load paths, connections, manufacturing constraints, and failure modes.
• Translate marine and subsystem loads into practical load cases, boundary conditions, design margins, and hardware decisions.
• Analyze static stress, slam and impact loading, shock, fatigue, buckling, weight and center of gravity, stability-related structural inputs, and structural DFM considerations.
• Use first-principles calculations and FEA to guide decisions, validate assumptions, and optimize structures for weight and real-world operating conditions.
• Correlate analysis with physical test results, investigate unexpected behavior or failures, and rapidly improve the design.
• Work directly with technicians, fabricators, suppliers, shipyards, and cross-functional engineers during composite fabrication, prototype assembly, subsystem integration, and troubleshooting.
• Serve as a core engineering participant during structural tests and sea-trial operations.
• Document key assumptions, load cases, analyses, test findings, and design decisions with the level of rigor needed to move quickly and responsibly.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of relevant structural, mechanical, marine, naval architecture, or closely related engineering experience. Candidates with greater experience are encouraged to apply.
• Demonstrated end-to-end ownership of physical hardware, from structural design through fabrication, integration, test, and iteration.
• Hands-on experience designing mechanically loaded structures or assemblies, ideally for vessels or other demanding vehicle or hardware environments.
• Experience with FRP composites or other lightweight structures, including an understanding of manufacturing methods, structural behavior, and failure modes.
• Strong structural-analysis judgment across load paths, stress and strain, bending, shear, torsion, buckling, fatigue, shock, impact, and material behavior.
• Ability to use first-principles calculations and appropriate analysis methods to make timely engineering decisions.
• Working experience with FEA. We are tool-agnostic and welcome experience with ANSYS, Abaqus, Nastran, FEMAP, SolidWorks Simulation, or comparable platforms.
• Ability to interpret and create engineering drawings and CAD models, with sound judgment around materials, manufacturability, maintainability, installation, weight, and cost.
• Comfort spending significant time in the shop and test environment, including fabrication oversight, prototype assembly, troubleshooting, and sea trials.
• Ability to operate with high ownership, rapid deadlines, limited process, and ambiguity in an early-stage hardware environment.
• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Civil/Structural Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent demonstrated technical experience.

Preferred Experience

• Marine vessel, USV/ASV, boatbuilding, small-craft, yacht, naval, or defense structural design.
• Composite laminate design, composite failure analysis, FRP fabrication, or hands-on composite build oversight.
• Marine load cases such as slam, impact, shock, fatigue, and real-world worn or loaded operating states.
• Weight-optimized structures, weight and center-of-gravity management, or coordination of stability-related structural inputs.
• SolidWorks CAD familiarity, GD&T, structural DFM, bonded or mechanically fastened joints, and welded or bolted metallic structures.
• Direct work with machine shops, welders, composite fabricators, shipyards, suppliers, or manufacturing partners.
• Prototype integration, structural testing, root-cause investigation, field operations, or sea trials.
• Experience in adjacent hands-on environments such as autonomous vehicles, robotics, aerospace, motorsports, heavy equipment, or other mechanically demanding systems. Marine experience is preferred, but strong hardware ownership and structural design judgment can transfer.

How You Will Work

• Report to the CTO and independently own decisions across structural layout, sizing, materials, weight and center of gravity, and structural DFM.
• Collaborate across naval architecture, mechanical, autonomy, actuation, and offloading disciplines.
• Spend most of your time close to the hardware in the shop, fabrication, integration, or test environment.
• Use analysis to drive decisions quickly, then validate and refine those decisions with physical test data.
• Prioritize sound judgment and shipped hardware over analysis for its own sake.