Mechanical Project Engineer
Kepler Communications
Key Responsibilities:
- Lead an integrated product team owning the development of related subsystem units
- Assign and prioritize execution of deliverables across assigned work packages
- Manage cost, schedule, and scope from concept through delivery, own the execution baseline
- Coordinate across disciplines (systems, software, hardware, QA, integration) to ensure consistent progress and clear technical direction
- Support interface development and integration
- Run technical milestone planning and readiness reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR, PRR)
- Drive issue resolution, risk mitigation, and schedule recovery where needed
- Maintain alignment between program-level objectives and day-to-day engineering work
- Ensure adherence to engineering processes, quality standards, and system-level requirements
- Support mechanical design work as both contributor and design reviewer
Required Skills & Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or similar
- 5+ years in technical leadership or project engineering roles, preferably in space, aerospace, automotive, or similar regulated environments
- Experience delivering cross functional systems, covering mechanical, electrical, software, from initial design to production
- Strong understanding of hardware architecture and the development lifecycle
- Solid grasp of development, verification, and validation practices, including test planning and quality gates
- Proficient in schedule management, cost estimation and completion tracking, and earned value methodologies
- Ability to lead cross-functional teams in fast-paced, resource-constrained environments
- Comfortable working in mixed hardware and software environments and resolving interface-level gaps
- Effective communicator and decision-maker across engineering, PMO, and leadership teams
- Strong background in mechanical design including thermal, structural, CAD, and manufacturing aspects
Bonus Points:
- Experience with design for space, including space industry program development phases and qualification requirements
- Knowledge of agile project management principles, especially as they apply to hardware development