This position requires that you must be a US Citizen for consideration and meet all Federal Contractor employee requirements. Nomad GCS does not support the H1B Visa for this position.
Position: Mechanical Engineer IV - Intermodal Container
Division: Innovative Solutions Group
Department: Mechanical Engineering
Status: Full-Time
Mechanical Engineers (ME) work is a critical function in the engineering process, being responsible for taking designs from concept through full production documentation. Accuracy and completeness must be maintained through all levels of design to provide complete Bill of Materials (BOMs) and production worthy CAD models/ drawings to the manufacturing teams. All ME deliverables must meet or exceed Nomad Global Communication Solutions' standards of excellence. This role also requires progressively deeper expertise in intermodal freight container design, including container structures, interfaces, modifications, and the consistent use of freight-container terminology defined in ISO 830.
Mechanical Engineers must apply practical engineering science and technologies to designs. These include application of fluid mechanics, materials, structures, dynamics, basic electrical theory, and machine component design. Expertise in raw material selection, manufacturing processes (welding, machining, & sheet metal), quality control, and concentration on cost mitigation are also core required competencies.
Depending on level (I-V), Engineers progress from learning foundational engineering practices and supporting designs to independently leading complex platform architectures, mentoring others, and driving technical strategy across the organization.
Career Growth: Mechanical Engineers at Nomad GCS progress through five levels based on demonstrated technical mastery, independence, leadership, and impact. Advancement is supported through mentorship, project ownership, and alignment with Nomad's Core Values.
Organizational Structure: Nomad Engineering is organized into Teams and Disciplines within the Innovative Solutions Division.
Teams:
- Team 1 (Standards and Modularity): Builds and maintains engineering standards, modules, templates, and rules enabling repeatability and scale.
- Team 2 (Design): Executes project-level engineering using established standards and less complex custom configurations.
- Team 3 (Advanced): Develops novel systems and resolves first-of-kind engineering challenges.
- Team 4 (Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering): Ensures manufacturability, safety, engineering intent, efficiency, and continuous improvement throughout Production.
Disciplines:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Electrical Engineering
- IT Engineering
- Human Factors Engineering
- Software Engineering
A Mechanical Engineer may be temporarily assigned to one or more of the four Teams. These teams include Standards & Modularity, Design Engineering, Advanced Engineering, and/or Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering.
Core Responsibilities - All Levels: Design, develop, and support mechanical systems for Nomad platforms.
Technical Design & Engineering
- Design, analyze, and develop ISO shipping containers, specialized cargo containers, and intermodal transport systems in compliance with applicable international standards and customer requirements.
- Create detailed 3D models, fabrication drawings, and engineering documentation using CAD software.
- Perform structural analyses, load calculations, fatigue assessments, and finite element analysis (FEA) to validate designs under transportation, lifting, stacking, and environmental loads.
- Design and integrate automated lifting mechanisms, roof systems, access structures, and cargo handling features while maintaining compliance with applicable container standards.
Regulatory & Industry Standards
- Demonstrated experience designing containers in accordance with International Convention for Safe Containers (CSC) requirements, including container certification, testing, inspection, and recertification processes.
- Working knowledge of American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) rules and approval processes applicable to offshore, maritime, and transportable structures.
- Experience designing to PAM and PAM-IM standards and requirements for military, intermodal, and specialized containerized systems.
- Familiarity with ISO container standards, intermodal transportation requirements, and applicable domestic and international transportation regulations.
- Support certification documentation, regulatory submissions, design reviews, and third-party approvals.
Materials & Structural Engineering
- Extensive experience selecting and designing with structural steels, stainless steels, aluminum alloys, and other transportation-grade materials.
- Understanding of material properties, corrosion mechanisms, fatigue behavior, fracture resistance, and weight optimization techniques.
- Ability to balance structural performance, durability, manufacturability, and cost objectives while meeting payload and transportation requirements.
- Experience conducting weight studies, center-of-gravity assessments, and payload optimization analyses.
Welding & Fabrication
- Strong understanding of welded structure design principles and applicable welding codes and standards.
- Familiarity with weld joint design, welding procedures, distortion control, inspection requirements, and non-destructive examination (NDE/NDT) methods.
- Collaborate with manufacturing teams to ensure designs support efficient fabrication, assembly, and quality control processes.
- Experience preparing and reviewing fabrication drawings, welding specifications, and manufacturing work instructions.
Coatings, Corrosion Prevention & Maritime Readiness
- Knowledge of surface preparation processes, including abrasive blasting, cleaning, and pretreatment requirements.
- Experience specifying industrial coatings, marine coatings, and protective finishing systems for harsh environments.
- Understanding of corrosion prevention strategies for maritime, offshore, military, and long-term storage applications.
- Design container systems to withstand marine transportation, saltwater exposure, extreme weather conditions, and long-duration field deployment.
Manufacturability & Product Development
- Apply Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) principles to improve production efficiency, quality, and lifecycle costs.
- Collaborate with manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and project teams to transition designs from concept through production.
- Evaluate production methods, tooling requirements, fabrication constraints, and material availability during product development.
- Participate in prototype development, qualification testing, root cause investigations, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Design, analyze, and document intermodal freight container structures, assemblies, and modifications for integration into Nomad vehicles and platforms.
- Apply ISO 830 freight-container vocabulary consistently in engineering requirements, drawings, specifications, design reviews, and supplier communications.
- Evaluate container structural load paths, lifting and securing interfaces, corner structures, openings, reinforcements, mounting provisions, and equipment integration while maintaining safety, durability, manufacturability, and transportability.
- Identify and apply applicable container design, testing, handling, and certification requirements in addition to ISO 830 terminology, based on project scope, customer requirements, and intended modes of transport.
- Support manufacturing by answering technical questions, resolving build issues, and improving design clarity.
- Participate in design reviews, testing, validation, and root cause analysis.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with other Engineering disciplines, Production, Quality, and Project Management teams.
- Apply continuous improvement principles to improve product quality, reliability, and manufacturability.
- Uphold and model Nomad Core Values in all work.
- Create CAD documentation for projects, including top levels assemblies, sub-assemblies, and parts.
- Use FEA to analyze designs: determine stress, create tests to verify results, document analysis, and change designs as needed to optimize.
- Create, implement, supervise, and document tests verifying designs meet customer requirements.
- Complete all analyses, documentation, and drawings required for Production within established time frames as agreed upon by the Operations Team.
- Communicate with vendors and clients to troubleshoot designs, get information on new designs, and obtain specifications/drawings/models of components.
- Track and record work hours for each specific project daily.
- Be willing to travel as needed by Management.
- Perform additional duties as assigned.
Level Expectations:
Mechanical Engineer IV - Senior Technical Lead
- Own mechanical system architecture across multiple product lines or platforms.
- Set design standards, guidelines, and best practices for the organization.
- Experience defining system architectures reused across multiple products or programs.
- Lead high-risk or highly complex engineering efforts from concept through production.
- Deep familiarity with compliance, certification, and safety-critical design processes.
- Serve as a technical authority for intermodal container architecture and major structural modifications, establishing design guidance that preserves container functionality, safety, transportability, and repeatable manufacturability.
- Ownership of technical decision-making where failure would have significant cost or safety impact.
- Experience balancing competing constraints (schedule, cost, performance, manufacturability).
- Drive design decisions impacting safety, reliability, compliance, and scalability.
- Serve as a primary technical authority for mechanical systems at Nomad GCS.
- Coach and mentor engineers across all levels.
- Influence engineering strategy, tooling, and long-term technical direction.
- Recognized internally as a go-to expert for complex engineering challenges.
- Demonstrated technical mastery.
- BS in Mechanical Engineering or related field
- 8-12+ years advanced Mechanical Engineering experience.
Progression signal: Others rely on this engineer's judgment to make irreversible or high-impact decisions.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering or related field preferred. Degree must be ABET accredited.
- Must have CAD experience. SolidWorks preferred.
- Demonstrated experience designing or modifying intermodal freight containers, containerized platforms, or comparable transportable structural systems is preferred.
- Working knowledge of ISO 830 freight-container vocabulary and familiarity with other applicable container design, dimensional, testing, handling, and certification standards is preferred.
Physical Demands:
- Ability to stand and sit for extended periods.
- Manual dexterity to operate office equipment.
- Occasionally lift and/or move up to 20 pounds.
- Occasional climbing or hands-on testing activities.
- Ability to work in office, shop, and vehicle environments as needed.
- Ability to work safely around energized systems when required.
- Must be able to travel as needed on occasion.
Working Environment:
- Combination of office, production floor, and vehicle-based environments.
- Exposure to manufacturing noise, electrical/ manufacturing equipment, and testing environments.
- PPE required when entering production or testing areas.
