Principal Mechanical Engineer

Saronic Saronic · Defense · Austin, TX · Engineering

Principal Mechanical Engineer at Saronic, a company focused on autonomous maritime solutions. The role involves senior technical leadership in perception hardware, marine engineering, mechanical integration, and structures, ensuring the delivery of reliable hardware for autonomous surface vessels in harsh maritime environments. Responsibilities include leading issue resolution, providing technical direction, driving engineering decisions, reviewing designs, and mentoring engineers.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead resolution of complex mechanical engineering issues across perception hardware, marine systems, vehicle integration, and structures.
  2. Provide technical direction during design reviews, program reviews, trade studies, root-cause investigations, and build/test activities.
  3. Drive sound engineering decisions across mechanical architecture, subsystem packaging, structural design, marine auxiliary systems, and sensor integration.
  4. Review and improve designs, analyses, drawings, test plans, and validation strategies to ensure technical rigor and execution quality.
  5. Partner with mechanical, electrical, perception, manufacturing, and program teams to deliver hardware that is manufacturable, serviceable, reliable, and production ready.

Skills

Required

  • Bachelor’s degree or greater in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Marine Engineering, Structural Engineering, or a related field.
  • 10+ years of mechanical engineering experience in complex hardware development.
  • Strong fundamentals in mechanical design, structural analysis, materials, tolerance analysis, manufacturability, and system integration.
  • Experience supporting hardware through concept, design, analysis, prototype build, test, and production.
  • Proficiency with 3D CAD tools such as Siemens NX, SolidWorks, Creo, or similar.
  • Experience with hand calculations, FEA, design reviews, engineering drawings, and root-cause analysis.
  • Ability to communicate clearly, make decisions with incomplete information, and lead technical execution across multiple teams.
  • Ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance.

Nice to have

  • Experience with autonomous systems, maritime systems, robotics, aerospace, defense, or other harsh-environment hardware platforms.
  • Experience in one or more of the following areas: perception hardware, optomechanical systems, marine auxiliary systems, mechanical integration, electronics packaging, or structures.
  • Familiarity with shock, vibration, corrosion, environmental sealing, thermal management, fatigue, and serviceability considerations.
  • Experience with ASME Y14.5, GD&T, Femap, ANSYS, CFD, thermal tools, or production release processes.
  • Prior experience on DoD programs or unmanned maritime systems.
  • Professional Engineer license or similar professional certification.

What the JD emphasized

  • obtain and maintain a security clearance