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Senior Mechanical Engineer

Icarus· Engineering
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Los Angeles, CA$120k - $220kFull-timePosted 8mo ago

About the role

Senior Mechanical Engineer at Icarus, a YC-backed aerospace startup building solar-powered stratospheric aircraft for persistent presence at 60,000 ft.

Responsibilities

  • Design and fly lightweight, high-reliability structures for stratospheric aircraft
  • Own mechanical subsystems from concept to flight
  • Perform first-principles sizing, trade studies, and rapid iteration
  • Build, test, break, and refine flight hardware
  • Support integration, production, and flight operations
  • Work closely with avionics, GNC, power, RF, and software teams

Qualifications

  • 2+ years designing, analyzing, or building real mechanical hardware
  • Strong fundamentals in structures, materials, and first-principles engineering
  • Experience with lightweight structures, composites, sheet metal, or bonded assemblies
  • Comfortable moving fast, owning outcomes, and working hands-on in the factory and field

Skills

Required:Mechanical design and analysisStructures and materialsLightweight structures / composites / sheet metal / bonded assemblies

Benefits

  • Meaningful equity
  • Top market salary and bonuses
  • Health, dental, and vision insurance
  • Factory in El Segundo
  • Real ownership, real hardware, real flight
  • Small team, massive responsibility
  • High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture
  • Dream desk setup
  • Daily lunch
  • Unlimited celsius
Last updated Sep 16, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Icarus

Stratospheric birds for defense

Always-on intelligence and connectivity for Defense. Icarus builds autonomous, solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 feet for weeks at a time, above the clouds harnessing the power of the Sun, but never too close. Acting as a Cell Tower in the Sky, it’s the U-2 spy plane reborn in 2025, except each costs $100K and is built by the thousands. The future of warfare is persistent swarms in the Stratosphere.

hardwareswarm-roboticsaerospace
Company profileWebsite

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