Equipment Design & Development Engineer

Who You Are

We're seeking an expert, hands-on mechanical engineer with an interest in learning new things and a desire to bring experimental concepts to life. This position will focus on designing, procuring, and assembling lab and pilot scale test systems. You’ll be working with engineers, scientists, and technicians, so mental flexibility and collaborative problem solving abilities are required. You don’t need to have deep experience in all of these fields, but you must be willing to get it. Your work is thoroughly documented; it’s rare that a question posed to you doesn’t already have the answer written down. You have excellent communication skills and thoughtfully navigate through technical discussions and debates. You’re flexible, not formulaic, in your approach to solving problems.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Work collaboratively with teams to support, update, and design experimental platforms and subsystems for first-of-their-kind chemical reactions. This includes mechanical, electronic, plumbing, and automation systems.
• Deploy and bring hardware online from the first component to final production handoff. When things break, dig deep to find and permanently resolve the root cause.
• Develop and perform meaningful, robust unit tests on systems you’ve updated or created.
• Design and quickly prototype components and assemblies to support lab scale experimentation.
• Generate detailed documentation for use by teams throughout a project and after its completion.
• Gather feedback from end-users of your work and distill into practical modifications. Iterate.
• Engage with external parties (fabricators, equipment OEMs, consultants, contractors) and manage sophisticated technical procurements to success.
• Craft and implement experimental plans
• Find failure-modes and root-causes. Crush them.

Knowledge and Skills Requirement

• Exceptional mechanical design and fabrication proficiency. Intuition for what will work and analytical ability to evaluate from first principles.
• Experience with rapid design and prototyping
• Experience with deploying instrumentation and measurement systems
• System design and experimentation abilities 
• Proven ability to learn new systems and improve on them
• At least a B.S. in engineering or physical sciences (e.g. M.E., Physics)
• 3-8 years of work experience
• Effortless proficiency at designing and generating mechanical parts and assemblies, ideally with SolidWorks 3D and AutoCAD 2D.

Physical Demands and Working Conditions

• Pass a respirator fit test and be able to wear respiratory protection daily
• Wear personal protective equipment including, but not limited to, a lab coat, gloves, safety glasses, and steel toe safety shoes
• Move items up to 50 lbs with the assistance of lift equipment and carts
• Move long distances (such as from building to building) and be stationary for extended periods of time
• Reach low shelves or items on the floor
• Enter spaces narrower than 3 feet
• Climb stairs or over containment walls
• Precise and repetitive handling of a range of material quantities
• Operate a computer and other office equipment, such as a laptop, copier/printer, etc in a fixed location

The starting base pay for this role is between $166,000 and $210,250 at the time of posting. The actual base pay depends on many factors, such as education, experience, and skills. Base pay is only one part of Sila’s competitive Total Rewards package that can include benefits, perks, equity, and bonuses.  The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future.