Mechanical Engineer

THE MISSION

ITERRA is building the system of record for low-altitude airspace. 

Above 400 feet, every aircraft is tracked, logged, and attributable. Transponders, flight plans, radar, ATC. Below it, nothing. No transponder mandate an adversary obeys, no log, no attribution. Every headline ends the same way: nobody could say what was in that airspace.

A record-keeper cannot be a participant in the fight it is recording. That is why we are passive, and it is not a limitation, it is the product.

WHAT WE ARE BUILDING

Passive, edge-native RF and electro-optical sensing that autonomously detects and classifies Group 1-3 UAS without relying on pre-loaded signature libraries. Fused on the device. No active emissions. No cloud dependency. Purpose-built for denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited (DDIL) environments where legacy radar and library-dependent sensors fail.

WHO WE ARE

Small team. High trust. No bureaucracy. No tourists. Only builders.

Field-tested, integrated with the command-and-control systems our customers already run, SDVOSB certified, and manufacturing on U.S. soil in Hatillo, Puerto Rico.

WHAT YOU OWN

The sensor is only as good as the box it lives in. You own the physical product: the enclosure, the radome, the mounts, the thermal path, the cable routing, and the drawings that let someone else build it again. You take a system that works on a bench in Hatillo and make it survive a mast in a tropical downpour, a vehicle roof on a dirt road, and a case thrown out of a truck. You report to the CTO and you are the mechanical owner of the product.

• Enclosure design in SolidWorks. Our current unit is a modular stack of sealed boxes on a tripod pole, one module per subsystem, designed to be built, opened, and serviced in the field. You inherit that design, fix what is wrong with it, and carry it to a production-ready revision. Top-down assemblies, sheet metal, machined 6061-T6, printed polymer, gaskets, heat-set inserts, radome windows.
• Thermal and structural analysis. An NVIDIA Jetson, multiple SDRs, LNAs, and a power board in a sealed enclosure in Caribbean heat. Hand calculations first, then ANSYS: steady-state and transient thermal, structural under load, shock, and vibration. You build the physical unit, instrument it, and report the temperature you measured next to the one you predicted.
• Waterproofing and environmental. IP65 baseline, IP67 where the customer demands it. Seal design, connector selection, drainage, condensation. Design to MIL-STD-810 profiles (temperature, humidity, salt fog, rain, vibration, shock), write the test plan, run what we can run in house, and specify what goes to a lab.
• Radome and RF transparency. Material selection for the antenna section: dielectric loss, UV, impact. You work with the RF engineer so the antenna that passed on the bench still passes inside the box. Radome loss is measured, not assumed.
• 3D printing, from prototype to production part. ASA for prototype runs, PPS-CF or equivalent for fielded parts. Print orientation, tolerances, post-processing, sealing, inserts. You know which parts should be printed forever and which need to move to machining or molding.
• Mounting and deployment. Tripod and mast, vehicle roof, fixed site, portable case insert. A common mounting interface across variants. Camera and antenna mounts integrated into the same stack. Setup in minutes, in the dark, with gloves on.
• Cable routing and integration. With our electrical engineer: RF cable runs, connector choice (SMA, TNC, N-type), phase-matched lengths on direction-finding pairs, strain relief, service loops, and a harness a technician can replace in the field.
• Materials compliance. TAA-compliant, no-China sourcing, traceability documented. Our enclosure alloy decision already exists; you keep the paperwork behind it current as vendors change.
• Documentation and BOM. Full 2D drawing packages with GD&T, install guide with step photos, calculation and simulation reports, and a production BOM with per-unit cost at 10, 50, 250, and 1,000 units, long-lead and single-source parts flagged.
• Repeatable builds. The bar for the first customer rig is not "it works when I try it." It is that we can build the fifth unit exactly like the first, and when it breaks in someone else's hands, we know why.

The enclosure you design is the one that ships to a government customer with our name on it. Nobody downstream second-guesses it. That is the weight of the seat.

HOW WE WORK

We are small, and we move at a pace that only a small team can. Engineering runs on two-week cycles against a single shared plan. Every seat, RF, mechanical, electrical, and software, owns a slice of the same rig and has to land its objectives on the same date the others do. An antenna that is finished three weeks before the enclosure is not finished. A mount that is finished after the field test is a failure.

You scope your own work, commit to dates, say early and loudly when a date is at risk, and integrate with the rest of the stack instead of handing over a part and walking away. Pace is a requirement of the seat, not a culture slogan, and it is the reason a company our size can put fielded hardware in front of a government customer.

WHAT WE REQUIRE

B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. Three to six years of product design, with at least one piece of hardware you designed that shipped and lived outdoors. Ruggedized electronics, aerospace, defense, marine, or industrial equipment backgrounds preferred. Hands-on work counts wherever you did it: thesis, senior design, student competition, a personal project, or a bench in your apartment. We care that you have done it, not who paid you to.

• You have designed and built a sealed electronic enclosure. Tell us what was inside, how you managed the heat, what failed in test, and what you changed.
• SolidWorks, strong. Top-down assemblies, sheet metal, drawings with GD&T that a machine shop can build from without calling you.
• Analysis, applied. Hand calculations for heat transfer, bolted joints, and structural loads. FEA and thermal simulation in ANSYS or equivalent. You know when the simulation is lying.
• 3D printing at a professional level. Engineering polymers (ASA, PC, nylon, carbon-fiber composites), design for print, tolerancing for fit, post-processing. You run the printers yourself.
• Waterproofing and environmental testing. You have designed to an IP rating and tested it. Working knowledge of MIL-STD-810.
• Materials and processes. Aluminum sheet metal and machining, polymers, gaskets and seals, fasteners and inserts, coatings and corrosion control in a salt environment.
• Shop hands. Printers, hand tools, drill press, band saw, basic machining. You build your own prototypes before you send a drawing to anyone.
• Documentation discipline. Drawings, BOMs, revision control, install guides. If it is not documented, it did not happen.
• Method over conclusions. If the measurement says the product underperforms, we need to hear it from you first, and we will act on it, not argue with it.
• U.S. person under ITAR.
• Onsite in Hatillo, Puerto Rico, and in the field, outdoors, carrying gear.

Preferred: radome or antenna housing design. RF cable and connector practice. MIL-STD-461 EMI/EMC enclosure experience. DFM for low-volume production and vendor management. Injection molding readiness. UAS or ground sensor hardware. TAA/ITAR supply chain documentation. Clearance eligibility. Spanish.

WHAT WE OFFER

We pay a Puerto Rico competitive base and we win on everything around it: ownership of your domain, early equity, and coverage most companies our size do not offer.

• Base salary within the posted range, set by demonstrated capability, not by years on a resume.
• Early-employee equity. Stock options in iTerra Solutions, Inc., the Delaware parent, granted at pre-seed valuation. You join before the first priced round, which means you own a piece of the company at the lowest price it will ever be. Subject to board approval and standard vesting.
• Medical, dental, and vision, employee coverage fully paid by the company.
• Wellness benefit. A monthly stipend toward a gym membership.
• Flexible PTO.
• Direct access to the CTO and the founder. No layers. Your work is reviewed by the people who will ship it.
• Your work goes to the field in year one. Whatever you own will be characterized against a real government criteria set within twelve months. Very few engineers get that in their first five years.

This position requires access to export-controlled information under ITAR (22 CFR 120-130). Applicants must be U.S. persons as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).

ITERRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.