What are the responsibilities and job description for the Mechanical Engineer position at The Planet Group?
Role Overview:
Job Title: Mechanical Engineer
Location: Needham, MA
Duration: 2 months
Job Description:
This individual will be responsible for proving technical feasibility for upcoming roadmap projects during an early-stage window, ahead of firm product definition.
This work directly shapes product definition by identifying what's functionally possible and giving the cross-functional team options for how to achieve the desired outcome. This role requires a high degree of independence supported by daily check-ins with project management.
Required skills include:
• POC Development – Harvesting components from existing products and adding or modifying as necessary to create a functional proof of concept. Strong hands-on skills and creative thinking on how to move forward quickly are critical to success.
• System Level Thinking – Consider how all the parts interact with each other, look for unresolved issues, and chase them down.
• Test Design and Execution – Determine what we need to know and how best to learn it, then execute the plan. Familiarity with thermocouples, current clamps, and electro-mechanical systems required.
• Thermal Fundamentals – Strong grasp of heat transfer principles. These products are thermally driven, and this understanding is critical to identifying feasible paths quickly.
• Data Analysis – Digest and compile data to understand how a system is working and determine the next steps.
• Reporting – Generate clear written and verbal reports on progress.
• Independence – Comfortable operating with minimal daily oversight and navigating ambiguity without a fully defined spec.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop approaches for mockups, prototypes, and proofs of concept
- Build and modify prototypes using hands-on tools and techniques
- Determine what materials/components are needed and source/order them
- Perform functional and thermal testing
- Analyze test results and recommend next steps or improvements
- Work with components such as heaters, sensors, motors, thermocouples, and current clamps
- Apply fundamentals of heat transfer, thermal behavior, and physics
- Document progress and communicate findings to engineering leadership
- Provide clear written and verbal status updates, conclusions, and recommendations‘
Top 3 Must-Have Skills
- Hands-on prototyping/building
- Ability to construct prototypes and mockups from scratch
- Comfortable with standard hand tools and shop tools
- General sheet-metal or metalworking/forming experience is highly desirable
- Ability to figure out how to bend, form, fasten, and integrate materials/components
- Thermal/heat-transfer and testing knowledge
- Understanding of heat transfer and thermal behavior
- Experience or familiarity with thermal testing
- Comfortable working with thermocouples and current clamps
- General understanding of engineering testing protocols
- Strong communication
- Able to clearly communicate technical findings
- Provides concise written and verbal status updates
- Can identify issues, recommend next steps, and help align the team
Experience Requirements
- Targeting approximately 2–4 years of engineering experience
- Candidates should have prior professional engineering experience; standard undergraduate co-ops/internships generally do not count toward this requirement
- Postgraduate internships/co-ops that functioned essentially as full-time engineering roles may be considered
- CATIA/CAD experience is not a hard requirement
- Prior thermal analysis/prototype-testing experience is strongly preferred