What are the responsibilities and job description for the Lead Mechanical Engineer position at Piper Maddox?
Series A Power Electronics Startup
Lead Mechanical Engineer, Industrial Enclosures
π Santa Cruz CA
π° Competitive Base Significant Equity Comprehensive Benefits
π’ On-site, Full-time
Company Overview
Our client is a well-funded and rapidly growing startup building next-gen power infrastructure to meet the explosive energy demand from AI data centers. Their technology directly addresses the bottlenecks preventing faster deployment of electricity generation and consumption.
Recent milestones:
- Secured $40M Series A funding from top-tier Silicon Valley investors
- Selected for NVIDIA's Inception program for companies advancing AI infrastructure
- Team includes former Tesla Energy technical leaders who've shipped gigawatts worth of category-defining power electronics products
- Experiencing massive growth driven by hyperscaler data center demand
This company is solving one of the most pressing electrical infrastructure challenges of the AI era: how to connect massive renewable generation and power-hungry loads to an aging grid... faster, cheaper, and at scale.
The Role
As the Lead Mechanical Engineer, you'll own the design and delivery of shipping-container-sized enclosures for high-frequency power converters. This is end-to-end ownership, from initial CAD model to high-volume production, working alongside a tight-knit and highly-talented team of cross functional engineers.
You'll be designing for high-volume manufacturing, considering 10-year reliability in outdoor industrial environments, structural integrity, thermal management, weather sealing, EMI shielding, and compliance with grid interconnection standards.
What you'll own:
- Mass-manufacturable enclosure systems: sheet metal structures, structural plastics, seals, busbars, cable management, thermal systems
- Structural FEA, tolerance analysis, thermal modeling, ingress protection
- DFM across processes: stamping, welding, die-casting, injection molding, riveting, dispensing
- Hands-on prototyping, testing, and validation through environmental and compliance testing
- Full product lifecycle ownership from concept β production release
What We're Looking For:
- Strong grasp of first-principles engineering methodology
- 5 years mechanical design experience of large-format, outdoor-rated, industrial enclosures for electromechanical systems (power electronics, switchgear, industrial controls, BESS, mechatronics, etc.)
- 5 years professional experience with 3D CAD, structural analysis, FEA, CFD, thermal simulation
- Proven ability to lead designs from prototype β production independently
- Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering, or related field (advanced degree a plus)
- CATIA V6/3DX preferred
Why Join
- Ground-floor opportunity at a Series A startup attacking a multi-billion-dollar market
- Backed by top investors and validated by exploding customer demand and inclusion in NVIDIA's partner ecosystem
- Work with power electronics veterans with experience building category-defining products at massive scale
- Build equity in a company positioned at the intersection of AI, renewables, and grid modernization - the fastest growing sector in the US economy
- First-principles culture: No bureaucracy - the best ideas win.
This is a one-in-a-lifetime chance to be an early employee at a company that will define the next generation of electrical infrastructure for AI data centers and renewable energy.
Salary : $120,000 - $220,000