Senior Manager, Mechanical Engineering - 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 the senior Mechanical Engineering Manager, Drone, you will lead and grow the team responsible for the mechanical design of our drone platforms, from airframe and structures through full aircraft integration. You will own the mechanical engineering roadmap for our uncrewed aircraft, hire and develop a team of mechanical engineers, and work hands-on with your team through the full product design lifecycle, from concept and prototype through flight test and production.

At Applied Intuition, you will:

• Build and lead a team of mechanical engineers responsible for the airframe, fuselage, wings or rotor arms, landing gear, and structural components of our drone platforms

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

• Guide your team's integration of propulsion, batteries, avionics, and payloads into the airframe, including packaging, mounting, cooling, and cable routing

• Oversee structural, thermal, and vibration analysis across the team, and use flight and test data to validate and improve designs

• Drive a culture of rapid prototyping: build, assemble, and iterate on real hardware, and support flight testing and field operations alongside your team

• Lead failure and crash investigations, drive root cause analysis, and turn lessons into design improvements across the team

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

• Champion design for manufacturability, repairability, and field serviceability across your team's work

• Hire, mentor, and grow mechanical engineers, and manage their performance and career development

• Partner cross-functionally with autonomy, avionics, electrical, software, and flight test leaders to ensure designs meet mission requirements

We're looking for someone who has:

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

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

• 7+ years of experience leading and managing mechanical engineering teams

• 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

• Track record of hiring, developing, and retaining strong engineering talent

Nice to have:

• Experience supporting flight test and field operations, including setting up devices under test 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)

• Hands-on experience shipping high-complexity hardware in both early-stage startup (0 to 1) and mass-production environments

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.