Lead Mechanical Engineer

Power Electronics Startup

Lead Mechanical Engineer, Industrial Enclosures

📍 Santa Cruz CA

💰 Competitive Base Equity

🏢 On-site

Company Overview

My client is a well-funded power electronics startup building next-gen power infrastructure to meet the explosive demand from AI data centers and renewable energy. 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
• Leadership team includes former Tesla power electronics veterans who've shipped gigawatts of converters
• Experiencing 300% YoY growth driven by hyperscaler data center demand

This org is solving one of the most pressing 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 multi-megawatt power converters. This is end-to-end ownership, from first CAD model to high-volume production, working alongside a tight-knit team of mechanical, electrical, and manufacturing engineers.

You'll be designing for extreme 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
• First-principles design approach: tolerance analysis, structural FEA, thermal modeling, ingress protection (IP ratings)
• DFM across processes: stamping, welding, die-casting, injection molding, riveting, dispensing
• Hands-on prototyping, testing, and validation through environmental and compliance testing
• Cross-functional collaboration with electrical, test, manufacturing, and supply chain teams
• Full product lifecycle ownership from concept → production release

Tech stack: CATIA V6/3DX (preferred), GD&T, tolerance analysis, FEA tools

What We're Looking For

Must-haves:

• Strong first-principles engineering approach and analytical rigor
• 5 years designing outdoor-rated industrial enclosures for electromechanical systems (power electronics, switchgear, industrial controls, battery systems, etc.)
• 5 years professional experience with 3D CAD (CATIA V6/3DX experience is a major plus)
• Deep understanding of high-volume manufacturing processes: sheet metal, injection molding, welding, fastening, sealing
• Experience with ingress protection (IP/NEMA ratings) and environmental sealing
• Proven ability to take designs from prototype → production independently

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience with medium voltage equipment, grid-connected converters, or electrical power infrastructure
• Coatings, paints, composites for outdoor industrial applications
• FEA, CFD, thermal simulation (ANSYS, MATLAB, etc.)
• PLM systems and controlled release processes (Agile, Arena, Teamcenter, etc.)
• Reliability testing (DFMEA, DVP&R, environmental chambers, HALT/HASS)
• Exposure to PCBAs, busbars, HV connectors, fuses in electromechanical assemblies

Why Join Now

• Ground-floor opportunity at a Series A startup attacking a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure ecosystem
• Backed by top investors and validated by inclusion in NVIDIA's partner ecosystem
• Work with power electronics veterans with experience shipping industry defining products at massive scale
• Build equity in a company positioned at the intersection of AI, renewables, and grid modernization
• First-principles culture: No bureaucracy. No constraints. Build it fast and build it right from day one.

This is a chance to be an early employee at a company that could define the next generation of grid infrastructure.