Senior Mechanical Engineer

About K1 Industries

For the first time in decades, power demand growth in the US has jumped 5x, driving multi-year lead times for critical power infrastructure. K1 builds and deploys modular power packages at scale, now.

The Role

We are hiring a Senior Mechanical Engineer to own the design, build, and test of major systems in our power plants. You will set the technical direction for your subsystems, make the calls on architecture and trade-offs, and be the person the rest of the team looks to when the hardware does something unexpected. You have done this before: you have taken complex mechanical systems from a blank page through detailed design, fabrication, commissioning, and the failures in between, and you know what it takes to make high-power machinery run reliably.

Our product is inherently mechanical: high-speed rotating machinery, dynamic loads, and high-power temperature management. You will go deep on these systems and raise the bar for how the whole team engineers. What we care about most is your first-principles judgment, your track record of shipping working hardware, and how fast you move from idea to tested result.

What You’ll Work On

System Architecture and First-Principles Design

• Translate product and customer needs into clear functional requirements and system-level specifications
• Set system bounds early with order-of-magnitude estimates, then drive the architecture to close
• Apply first-principles tools fluently: free body diagrams, energy balances, pressure/flow estimates and thermal budgets
• Make and own the hard trade-offs across cost, schedule, performance, and risk
• Work with vendors, fabricators, and the founding team early and often to pressure-test ideas

Subsystem Ownership and Design

• Own one or more major subsystems end to end, from concept to as-built
• Define the mechanical, electrical, and flow interfaces between subsystems and hold the team to them
• Produce and direct 3D CAD for layouts, interfaces, and clash checks, and lead design reviews

Detailed Design and Analysis

• Drive designs to as-built fidelity, with drawings and specs that fabrication partners can build from without ambiguity
• Set the analysis standard for the team. With high-power machinery, failures can be catastrophic, so you will make sure we rigorously check mechanical stresses, vibration and fatigue, contact loads, tolerance stack-ups, thermal growth, and fluids under pressure and temperature
• Know when hand calculations are enough and when FEA or CFD is warranted, and be able to sanity-check either
• Document analysis, design decisions, and reasoning clearly, and expect the same from others

Build, Test, and Commissioning

• Get hardware built and tested quickly. Speed to power is our edge
• Manage fabrication partners and machine shops through quoting, build, inspection, and delivery
• Design and lead test campaigns: structures, instrumentation, procedures, safety, and schedules
• Lead root-cause investigations when things break, and turn findings into design changes fast
• Test early and often. We win by finding problems fast and iterating quickly

Technical Leadership

• Mentor early-career engineers and raise the team’s technical standard through review and example
• Help shape our engineering processes as we grow: design reviews, drawing standards, release, and configuration control
• Influence hiring and help build the mechanical team around you

You Might Be a Great Fit If…

• You have 6+ years of mechanical engineering experience, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field
• You have taken complex mechanical systems from concept through detailed design, fabrication, test, and field operation, and can walk us through the decisions and the failures
• You have deep hands-on experience with high-speed rotating machinery, engines, turbomachinery, or similar high-energy systems
• You are fluent in CAD and detailed design for manufacture, and you can read, write, and review drawings to a high standard
• You have strong analytical fundamentals and sound judgment about when to calculate, when to simulate, and when to just build it and test it
• You have led fabrication partners and test campaigns and know how to get hardware delivered on time
• You want ownership, you make decisions without waiting for permission, and you move fast

Bonus Points For Any Of

• Gas turbine, aeroderivative, or reciprocating engine experience
• Gearboxes, couplings, generators, lubrication systems, or exhaust/environmental systems
• Design of skids, enclosures, or packaged power equipment for outdoor or industrial environments
• Rotordynamics, high-temperature materials, or high-pressure fluid systems
• Commissioning, field service, or root-cause work on operating machinery
• Time in a startup or small-team environment with real ownership, including building or leading a team