Director, Mechanical Engineering

Position Title: Director, Mechanical Engineering
Requisition ID: 1863
Position Location: Sterling, VA
Position Reports To: Senior Director, Hardware Engineering
Supervises Others: No

Position Summary

We are seeking an accomplished Director of Mechanical Engineering to build, lead, and grow our mechanical engineering discipline in support of DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space programs. This is a dual-track role: the Director serves as the functional manager for the mechanical engineering organization - responsible for staffing, career development, and performance of the team, while also serving as the Cognizant Mechanical Engineer (CME) design authority, holding technical signature authority over mechanical designs, analyses, and products delivered across the division.

The Director defines and matures mechanical engineering processes, standards, and best practices, ensuring consistent, high-quality, and efficient execution across programs. This individual partners with program managers, chief engineers, and peer discipline leads to balance functional excellence with program delivery, sets technical direction, and adjudicates complex mechanical engineering issues spanning structural, thermal, and electro-mechanical domains. The successful candidate combines deep technical credibility with proven people-leadership skill and is comfortable operating as both an executive stakeholder and a hands-on technical authority.

Duties and Responsibilities

Cognizant Mechanical Engineer (CME) / Design Authority:

• Serve as the Cognizant Mechanical Engineer design authority, holding technical sign-off responsibility for mechanical designs, structural and thermal analyses, and drawing packages prior to release.
• Lead and/or oversee the mechanical design of spacecraft electronics assemblies using high-fidelity CAD tools such as SolidWorks or similar, ensuring designs meet requirements and manufacturability standards.
• Review and approve detailed structural and thermal analyses validating design integrity under flight loads and temperatures.
• Provide technical oversight of space environmental testing and qualification activities, including vibration, thermal-vacuum (TVAC), and shock testing, to ensure flight readiness.
• Resolve complex, cross-disciplinary technical issues spanning mechanical, electrical, software, and firmware domains, exercising expert engineering judgment on problems of significant scope and ambiguity.
• Represent mechanical engineering technical authority in customer, program, and executive-level reviews.

Process Definition & Engineering Excellence:

• Define, document, and continuously improve mechanical engineering processes, design standards, and best practices across the division (CAD standards, drawing/GD&T conventions, analysis methodologies, PDM/configuration management practices).
• Establish and enforce design review, peer review, and verification gate criteria for mechanical work products, ensuring consistency and quality across programs.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to increase engineering efficiency, reduce rework, and shorten design-to-delivery cycle time.
• Ensure mechanical engineering processes align with applicable aerospace, DoD, and space-qualification standards.

Functional Management:

• Lead, mentor, and grow the mechanical engineering organization, including hiring, staffing allocation across programs, performance management, and career development planning.
• Own the mechanical engineering discipline's headcount, skills roadmap, and succession planning to meet current and future program needs.
• Establish goals and performance expectations for mechanical engineers; conduct regular performance reviews and provide coaching to develop technical and professional growth.
• Partner with Talent Acquisition to define role requirements, interview candidates, and build a pipeline of mechanical engineering talent.

Program & Organizational Support:

• Advise program management and executive leadership on mechanical engineering capacity, risk, and technical strategy.
• Ability to support travel or off-site work, as needed.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering from an ABET-accredited program.
• 15+ years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree, or 13+ years with a Master's degree, including demonstrated experience leading mechanical engineering teams.
• Demonstrated experience serving as a design authority or equivalent technical signature/approval role for aerospace or space hardware.
• Prior experience in a functional or people-management role, including hiring, performance management, and staff development.
• Experience defining or maturing engineering processes and standards within an aerospace, defense, or comparable regulated engineering environment.
• Experience with aerospace and/or space hardware development.
• Experience with PDM systems and configuration management.

Preferred Qualifications

• Working knowledge of space electronics packaging and cooling (VPX standards) and designing for space environments.
• Master's degree in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering.
• Prior experience building or scaling an engineering discipline within a growing organization.

Pay Information

Full-Time Salary Range: $153,000 - $230,000

Please Note: Actual compensation offered will be determined based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, education, certifications, internal equity, business considerations, and geographic location where applicable.

Benefits

Hired applicants may be eligible for benefits including but not limited to:

• Health benefits
  • Medical
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • Basic life with AD&D
  • Short term disability
  • Long term disability
  • Ancillary (Voluntary life with AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital, and pet)
  • Spending accounts (HSA, FSA, and DCFSA)
• Paid time off
• Holidays
• 401(k) (including company match)
• Tuition reimbursement
• Leaves (Parental, maternity, and military)
• Annual discretionary bonus (for eligible roles)

Trident Systems reserves the right to change or assign other duties to this position.