Mechanical Engineer
Icarus
<p>Icarus was founded on the belief that the Stratosphere is the <a href="https://henryicarus.substack.com/p/the-forgotten-frontier?utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;triedRedirect=true"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0000ee;">Forgotten Frontier</span></strong></a> and that reclaiming it will define the next era of aerospace and what is possible from the sky. We build solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft for weeks at a time, delivering persistent, affordable, and scalable presence from this layer of the atmosphere.</p> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">Mission</h2> <p>Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.</p> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">What you’ll do</h2> <ul> <li>Design and fly lightweight, high-reliability structures for stratospheric aircraft</li> <li>Own mechanical subsystems from concept to flight</li> <li>Perform first-principles sizing, trade studies, and rapid iteration</li> <li>Build, test, break, and refine flight hardware</li> <li>Support integration, production, and flight operations</li> <li>Work closely with avionics, GNC, power, RF, and software teams</li> </ul> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">What we’re looking for</h2> <ul> <li>1+ years designing, analyzing, or building real mechanical hardware</li> <li>Strong fundamentals in structures, materials, and first-principles engineering</li> <li>Experience with lightweight structures, composites, sheet metal, or bonded assemblies</li> <li>Comfortable moving fast, owning outcomes, and working hands-on in the factory and field</li> </ul> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">Why Icarus</h2> <ol> <li>Meaningful equity</li> <li>Top market salary and bonuses</li> <li>Health, dental, and vision insurance</li> <li>Factory in El Segundo</li> <li>Real ownership, real hardware, real flight</li> <li>Small team, massive responsibility</li> <li>High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture</li> <li>Dream desk setup</li> <li>Daily lunch</li> <li>Unlimited celsius</li> </ol> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">This is not a normal engineering job</h2> <ol> <li>We are pioneers, not corporate managers. Icarus deliberately optimizes for a high signal (engineers) to noise (management) ratio, where engineering, flight, and execution matter more than process, politics, or management overhead</li> <li>You will work side by side with the CEO and a small team of world-class builders. You will own your subsystem end to end. Design it. Build it. Break it. Fix it. Validate it in the desert. Fly it. Then do it again, faster</li> <li>We expect full extreme ownership. This is a high-trust, no-BS team, and everyone pulls their weight</li> <li>We are hiring across the stack: mechanical, aerodynamics, RF, GNC, electrical, avionics, power electronics, energy storage, software, and systems</li> <li>We want builders. No hand-holding. No fluff. No fake projects. No slide decks. No sitting in meetings all day. Just raw engineering, real hardware, and real flight</li> <li>You must thrive under pressure, learn fast, troubleshoot in the field, and push hardware to its limits. We move fast. We go to&nbsp;<strong>Mojave at 4 am in the morning</strong>. We expect results and an obsession with quality and speed</li> <li>You will be a core executor of flight systems, taking them from concept to reality and driving rapid iteration loops. You will work across design, integration, testing, and flight. If you w