About this role:

We are seeking an experienced Director to lead our Mechanical Design Engineering team in the development and implementation of our innovative thermal energy and power generation solutions. As a Director, you will be responsible for managing a small team of mechanical design engineers overseeing the design, development, and testing of our products and their implementation into projects.

Team size: 4 -8 ; role reports into the VP, Process & Power Systems

This is a hybrid role (3 days a week onsite) in either Pasadena, CA or Houston, TX

In this role, you will:

• Lead and manage a team of mechanical design engineers in the development of new products and solutions that meet the needs of Heliogen's customers.
• Ensure that all designs are safe, easily manufacturable, reliable, and efficient, and meet industry standards and regulations.
• Collaborate with other team leads, such as heliostats, systems and simulations, and software engineering, production to integrate mechanical systems with other components of Heliogen's solutions.
• Oversee the development and testing of prototypes, and work with the engineering team to refine designs based on performance data.
• Manage the budget and timeline for product development effort and ensure that the team delivers on time and within budget.
• Work with project management team to support project engineering work; Ensure quality and timely delivery of work output from the team in support of the project
• Build and maintain relationships with suppliers and vendors, and work with them to source components and materials.
• Stay up to date with industry developments and emerging technologies and incorporate new ideas and approaches into Heliogen's designs.
• Mentor and train junior members of the mechanical design team, and provide guidance and support as needed.

What's essential:

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or related field.
• 10+ years of experience in mechanical design engineering, with 3+ years as a technical lead or manager
• Solution oriented, with strong leadership and people management skills, with experience managing and coaching a team of engineers.
• Strong technical skills in mechanical design, good understanding of geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T), tolerance stack up
• Good understanding and ability to interpret results from thermal and stress analysis
• Experienced with full product development cycle for large scale equipment, best practices and demonstrated ability to systematically plan and execute on a risk mitigation path
• General experience with project engineering workflow for large capital projects and implementation of new products in such projects
• Knowledge of industry standards and codes e.g. ASME / EN / ISO.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a focus on data-driven decision making.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build and maintain relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Experience designing components that operate in high temperature (400-1000 ^oC) environments, including management of thermal stresses/gradients, creep
• Experience with CAD software, such as SolidWorks and experience working with commercial Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform

Desirable:

• Experience working in a startup
• Experience with multiple stages of the design process including detailed design and prototype manufacturing
• Good understanding of manufacturing processes and their impact on product design and cost
• Experience in industrial kiln, dryer design or other large scale industrial equipment
• Experience with stress analysis using methods appropriate to the level of design maturity using hand calculations or commercially available software such as ANSYS
• Professional Engineering license
• Experience in solar energy, renewable energy, or related fields