Senior Mechanical Engineer, Interceptor

About this role

Who We Are

GITAI is a space robotics company working to reduce the cost of work in space by 100x.

Space is no longer defined only by the cost of launch. Satellites, space stations, lunar infrastructure, and defense systems are becoming more capable and more ambitious. But getting hardware to space is only the first step. The harder problem is doing useful work once it is there.

GITAI develops robotic systems for orbital, lunar, and defense applications. Our robots are designed for tasks such as assembly, inspection, maintenance, construction, and surface operations in environments where human labor is expensive, dangerous, or impractical. To move fast and drive cost down, we keep hardware, software, testing, and integration close together. This allows our team to learn from real tests, shorten development cycles, and reduce dependency on slow external handoffs.

We are still early. The systems, the company, and the market are all being built at the same time. The work is difficult, and many answers are still not written down. If the work pulls you in, and you want to move it forward with your own hands, GITAI is the right place for you.

Your Mission

Lead the mechanical development of interceptor hardware from early architecture through prototype manufacturing, integration, field testing, and redesign.

You will own complex mechanical systems across vehicle structures, propulsion interfaces, avionics packaging, internal mechanisms, test hardware, and ground-support equipment. You will make critical design decisions, resolve cross-functional problems, and help the broader engineering team move faster through strong technical judgment and direct hands-on execution. This is a senior individual-contributor role. You do not need to be a people manager, but you will be expected to provide technical direction, review the work of other engineers, raise the quality of mechanical design, and step into difficult hardware problems when the team is blocked. This is not an analysis-heavy or propulsion-performance position. You will perform and review the calculations needed to support sound decisions, but the work remains grounded in hardware. Designs must be manufacturable, assemble correctly, survive their expected environment, and be ready for the next test.

What You’ll Drive

• Own the mechanical architecture and detailed design of interceptor hardware, including primary and secondary structures, motor mounts and interfaces, avionics packaging, internal mechanisms, enclosures, test fixtures, and ground-support equipment.

• Translate incomplete system requirements, expected loads, environmental conditions, packaging constraints, and subsystem interfaces into practical mechanical designs and clear technical decisions.

• Lead hardware through the full development cycle, including CAD, drawings, design reviews, supplier coordination, fabrication, inspection, assembly, integration, testing, failure investigation, and redesign.

• Provide technical direction and design review to junior and mid-level engineers, improving design quality, manufacturability, documentation, and engineering judgment across the team.

• Work directly with machinists, technicians, suppliers, and engineers to resolve difficult manufacturing, assembly, and integration issues without relying on organizational handoffs.

• Plan and execute structural, environmental, propulsion-related, and vehicle-level tests, including test readiness, field operations, inspection, troubleshooting, repair, and rapid preparation for follow-on testing.

• Lead failure investigations, identify root causes, and drive corrective actions through analysis, physical evidence, design changes, and validation testing.

• Make and communicate clear tradeoffs among mass, strength, stiffness, re