Senior Mechanical Engineer – Heliostats

Heliogen is a renewable energy technology company focused on eliminating the need for fossil fuels in heavy industry and powering a sustainable future.

You Aspire To:

Heliostats lie at the intersection of robotics, designing for reliability and manufacturability, electronics, software and optics.

Our innovative Heliostat technology has allowed Heliogen to harness the sun’s power more accurately and efficiently than ever before.

Come help us build!

• Design – engineering ownership of heliostats and components from ideation and requirements definition to detail design
• Analysis – quantitative analysis and optimization for geometry, kinematics, strength, stiffness, reliability, and cost
• Test –development and validation testing of heliostats and related equipment including planning, instrumentation, documentation, and coordination with external labs and organizations
• Design for Manufacturing (DFM) – collaborate with internal and external manufacturing teams to repeatably produce heliostats at lowest cost, including finalization of materials, finishes, processes, and tolerances, as well as quality planning

What’s Essential:

• BS, MS, or PhD in Mechanical Engineering + minimum of 5 years relevant work experience
• Rigorous understanding of fundamental mechanical engineering principles
• Cost optimization of conceptual designs based on requirements and material properties
• Parametric CAD design expertise, preferably in SolidWorks, including GD&T per ASME Y14.5
• Mechanism design experience including geometric optimization and electric motors
• Finite element analysis of static assemblies, preferably in Ansys Mechanical
• Design for long life in outdoor, industrial, and windy environments
• Extensive knowledge of engineering materials, finishes and processes
• Creation and evaluation of proof of concept hardware
• Testing of mechanical components and assemblies for strength, stiffness, accuracy, and accelerated exposure/lifetime
• DFM optimization, specification of inspection criteria and reviewing inspection data
• Design and transfer to manufacturing of high volume products
• Excellent verbal and written communicator, internally and externally
• Passion for a startup environment

What’s Desirable:

• 5+ years relevant professional experience
• Professional experience in concentrated solar industry 
• Offshore and on-shore high volume manufacturing
• Quality planning and preparation for manufacturing (APQP, FMEA, SPC, MSA, PPAP)
• Cross-disciplinary analysis including thermal, electrical, and optical domains
• Design of Experiments and highly accelerated life testing
• Selection, process development, and verification of adhesives
• Familiarity with and calculations per ASCE and IBC building codes
• Dynamic and/or thermal FEA using Ansys Mechanical
• Efficient analysis utilizing procedural and/or numerical software such as MATLAB or C#/.NET

Heliogen was created at Idealab, the leading technology incubator founded by Bill Gross in 1996.