Mechanical Engineer, Drone

Applied Intuition, Inc. is powering the future of physical AI. Founded in 2017 and now valued at $15 billion, the Silicon Valley company is creating the digital infrastructure needed to bring intelligence to every moving machine on the planet. Applied Intuition services the automotive, defense, trucking, construction, mining and agriculture industries in three core areas: tools and infrastructure, operating systems, and autonomy. Eighteen of the top 20 global automakers, as well as the United States military and its allies, trust the company’s solutions to deliver physical intelligence. Applied Intuition is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; London; Stuttgart; Munich; Stockholm; Bangalore; Seoul; and Tokyo. Learn more at applied.co .

We are an in-office company, and our expectation is that full-time employees primarily work from their Applied Intuition office 5 days a week. However, we also recognize the importance of flexibility and trust our employees to manage their schedules responsibly. This may include occasional remote work, starting the day with morning meetings from home before heading to the office, or leaving earlier when needed to accommodate family commitments. This in-office expectation does not apply to contractor positions

About the role

As a Mechanical Engineer on our drone program, you will help figure out how to make our aircraft fly: designing the airframe, structures, and mechanical systems that let our autonomy take to the air. You will be part of the full product design lifecycle, from concept and prototype through flight test and production, and your work will directly shape how our uncrewed aircraft perform. You will design lightweight, durable hardware, build it, fly it, break it, and make it better.

At Applied Intuition, you will:

• Own the mechanical design of our drone platforms, including airframe, fuselage, wings or rotor arms, landing gear, and structural components

• Make the tradeoffs between weight, strength, aerodynamics, flight time, and payload capacity that determine whether an aircraft flies well

• Integrate propulsion, batteries, avionics, and payloads into the airframe, including packaging, mounting, cooling, and cable routing

• Perform structural, thermal, and vibration analysis, and use flight and test data to validate and improve the design

• Prototype quickly: build, assemble, and iterate on real hardware, and support flight testing and field operations

• Analyze failures and crashes, drive root cause, and turn lessons into design improvements

• Own the design, analysis, and validation at the component, assembly, and fully integrated aircraft level

• Design for manufacturability, repairability, and field serviceability

• Work cross-functionally with autonomy, avionics, electrical, software, and flight test teams to make sure designs meet mission requirements

We're looking for someone who has:

• BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field

• 5+ years of experience designing hardware and shipping products, ideally for drones, UAS, or aircraft

• Hands-on experience designing flight vehicles or flight-critical structures, such as airframes, wings, fuselages, rotor arms, or landing gear

• Strong understanding of what makes an aircraft fly: weight, structures, aerodynamic loads, stability, and propulsion integration

• Experience designing lightweight structures, including composites, carbon fiber, and aerospace-grade metals

• Experience with design for manufacturing across methods such as CNC machining, composite layup, sheet metal, and additive manufacturing

• Proficiency in CAD, SolidWorks preferred, for 3D design and modification

• Hands-on prototyping and fabrication skills, and comfort building and testing real aircraft

Nice to have:

• Ability to support flight test and field operations, including setting up devices under test, running test scripts from test engineers, and writing clear documentation for test, maintenance, safety, and team processes

• Experience designing, drawing, and prototyping custom cable harnesses

• Demonstrated experience in FEA/CAE (structural, thermal, vibration, and shock)

Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.