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Clera

Senior Mechanical Engineer

Detroit
Salary
$165,000 - $210,000 annually
Level
Senior
Work type
On-site · Detroit
Visa
Not offered

Open. First seen 22 October 2026.

Apply on the company's site →

About the role

About the Role

Own major mechanical subsystems for ruggedized directed-energy systems, from architecture through production handoff. You will work on a lean engineering team to build and validate field-deployable hardware designed to perform in demanding environments.

What You'll Do

  • Design and validate laser enclosures, beam director and gimbal structures, and precision mounts.
  • Perform static, modal, random vibration, and shock response spectrum FEA, then correlate results with bench and field testing.
  • Develop thermal management solutions for high-power laser and electronics packaging across thermal cycles.
  • Build, instrument, and run test rigs to characterize systems before field deployment.
  • Design for MIL-STD-810 shock and vibration requirements and other austere operating conditions.
  • Take designs from concept through prototyping, validation, field testing, and manufacturing handoff.
  • Lead design reviews, collaborate across engineering disciplines, and mentor junior engineers.
  • Travel to field tests and range events to validate and improve system performance.

What We're Looking For

  • At least 5 years of mechanical engineering experience with ruggedized, field-deployable, or high-performance systems, including taking a subsystem from prototype to production.
  • Strong hands-on FEA skills with ANSYS, Nastran, Abaqus, or equivalent, including test correlation.
  • Experience designing to MIL-STD-810 or equivalent shock and vibration standards, and with precision optomechanical packaging.
  • Thermal management experience for high-power systems, plus experience building and running validation rigs and instrumentation.
  • Experience with design for manufacturability and manufacturing handoff.
  • BS or MS in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
  • Laser, directed-energy, ruggedized optical bench, or vehicle-mounted systems experience is a plus.
  • U.S. citizenship is required.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary is $165,000 to $210,000 annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site in Detroit, Michigan, with travel required for field testing and range validation.

What this role asks for

Particular to this role

ANSYS · FEA

Rare in Clera's other 299 open postings.

Compared with Clera's other open jobs.

The team: Engineering HIRES STEADILY

This role is one of 385 open in Engineering. 319 were posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in March: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.

WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS

LLM (162 of 385), Python (160 of 385), TypeScript (151 of 385), React (122 of 385), Machine Learning (92 of 385), PostgreSQL (70 of 385), JavaScript (66 of 385)

OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM

From the team and dates on Clera's own job board.

Salary context

78 other open postings titled Senior Mechanical Engineer state a salary: median USD 137,000 to USD 186,524 a year.

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