--- title: 'Mechanical Test Engineer at Salient Motion' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/mechanical-test-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-vkjdcwzj525z' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-13' --- # Mechanical Test Engineer at Salient Motion - **Company:** Salient Motion - **Location:** Hawthorne, CA - **Posted:** 2026-09-30 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-13 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/salientmotion/jobs/5439312008 ## Job description **Applicants must be U.S. Citizens or U.S. Permanent Residents (Green Card holders) to meet customer and regulatory requirements** ## Who We Are We are pioneering modular motion technologies to power the next generation of innovation for Industrial, Aerospace and Defense. If you're excited about disrupting legacy industries, and passionate about building the financial infrastructure behind cutting-edge hardware, let's chat! We are at the forefront of innovation, crafting exclusive motion control components that propel the industrial, aerospace, and defense sectors into the future. A couple other things: - We offer a lot of autonomy - We like to run lean for impact - We have great benefits - We are well funded, and already generating revenue - We are located in beautiful Hawthorne, CA and just moved into a new large hangar facility What you'll do: This role focuses on the mechanical and environmental side of qualification: vibration, shock, thermal, humidity, altitude, and life/durability testing, including the design of test fixtures and instrumentation. The role includes witnessing tests at customer and partner sites, both domestically and abroad. - Plan, write, and execute mechanical qualification and acceptance test procedures for actuators and integrated LRUs. - Develop test plans and reports to DO-160G and MIL-STD-810H, including vibration, shock, thermal, humidity, and altitude testing to support qualification as well as unit acceptance testing. - Design and build mechanical test fixtures, load setups, instrumentation, and data acquisition configurations. - Plan and execute load, life and durability, and environmental testing to validate cycle reliability requirements. - Manage testing at outsourced labs and witness tests at customer and partner facilities, domestically and internationally. - Coordinate test schedules, witness points, and acceptance criteria with customers and labs. - Analyze test data, identify mechanical failure modes, and drive root-cause/corrective action with design engineering. - Support development of an in-house qualification test lab as capability matures. What you need: - B.S. in Mechanical, Aerospace, or related engineering discipline. - 2+ years of qualification or environmental test experience on aerospace, defense, or comparable hardware. - Hands-on experience executing DO-160 and/or MIL-STD-810 mechanical and environmental test campaigns. - Proficiency with mechanical test instrumentation, load cells, accelerometers, data acquisition systems, and data analysis. - Experience designing test fixtures and mechanical instrumentation setups. - Strong technical writing for test plans and reports. - U.S. Person status required per ITAR and ability to travel internationally (valid passport required). Nice to have: - Experience with electromechanical actuators, motors, gear trains, or precision mechanisms. - Thermal, vibration and shock test familiarity (fixture design, modal considerations, test tailoring). - Exposure to commercial/defense certification environments. - Experience managing third-party test labs and witnessing customer acceptance testing. What we have to offer: We are not just building components. We are reshaping the future of the Aerospace and Defense component industry, which is a $300B+ market! Come join us and help build next generation systems that will make a massive impact at global scale. - Competitive compensation: $110,000 to $130,000 base salary + equity - Exceptional healthcare benefits — Medical is 100% covered by the company - Life Insurance (2x Salary) 100% covered by the company - Flexible PTO, 401K, Financial Wellness Resources, and more ## About Salient Motion ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Salient Motion designs and manufactures critical electromechanical actuation systems for commercial aviation and defense, replacing legacy supply chains with modular, software-defined motion control. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage) - **Headquarters**: Torrance, California, USA - **Founded**: 2022 - **Founders**: Vishaal Mali (CEO) ## Core Business - **Primary Industry**: Aviation and Aerospace Component Manufacturing, Defense - **Target Customers**: OEMs (e.g., Boeing), MROs, and defense contractors for commercial airliners and military platforms (B2B, Enterprise) - **Mission**: To change the paradigm of legacy aerospace and defense supply chains, unlocking a new era of speed, innovation, and possibility. ## Products & Services - **Critical Actuation Systems**: Advanced electromechanical actuators (linear and rotary) for flight control, landing gear, and other mission-critical functions on commercial and military aircraft. - **Software-First Architecture**: A modular, software-defined actuation platform that decouples control logic from hardware. Core motor control software is certified to DO-178C standards as a reusable library, enabling rapid configuration and validation across platforms. - **Certification Services**: Certification-centric engineering built from day one, aiming for up to 10x reductions in cost and lead time for certifiable products. - **Support & Sustainment**: Direct, fast, and personal support for integration, troubleshooting, and sustainment of actuation systems. ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total Funding of **$4.0M** (Seed round led by Cantos VC in October 2024, with participation from AE Ventures and Ian Rountree; a Pre-Seed round occurred in November 2022) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Cantos (Lead), AE Ventures, Ian Rountree. Key customer/partner: **Boeing** (collaborating on certifying modular actuators for commercial airliners). - **Growth Signals**: Headcount of ~30 employees with +15.2% monthly growth; talent sourced from Anduril Industries, Boeing, Virgin Galactic, and other top aerospace/defense firms; active job postings increasing +200% month-over-month; expansion to a second office in Irvine, CA. ## Competitive Advantages - **Software-First Modularity**: Their core differentiator is a software-defined architecture that is certified as a reusable library (DO-178C). This allows for rapid, low-cost configuration for different aircraft platforms, offering a 10x improvement in lead time and cost over legacy suppliers. - **Vertically Integrated Supply Chain**: Streamlined engineering workflows and vertically integrated partnerships enable delivery of actuator systems in weeks, not quarters. - **Certification-First Approach**: All systems are designed with certification in mind from day one, drastically reducing the time and cost to achieve airworthiness. - **Legacy Disruption**: They offer a direct alternative to high-cost, slow-moving legacy OEM suppliers, providing certified solutions without overhead markup. ## Strategic Focus - **Scale Production**: Moving from design and prototyping to manufacturing and delivery at scale, as evidenced by hiring for Senior Manufacturing Engineer and Quality Manager roles. - **Expand Customer Base**: Deepening the partnership with Boeing while expanding to other commercial and defense OEMs. - **Domestic Supply Chain**: Developing motors and inverters using domestic resources to meet national security imperatives. - **Platform Development**: Refining their core "electric motion operating system," including standalone inverters, web-based configuration platforms, and performant motors. ## Why Work Here - **High-Impact Work**: Employees solve some of the hardest motion control challenges in aerospace and defense, with work that directly impacts millions of daily passengers. - **Culture**: Described as a high-velocity environment emphasizing "Extreme Entrepreneurship," "Execution Over Excuses," and "Mastery Over Ego." The culture values ownership, creativity, and a relentless focus on execution. - **Strong Talent Pool**: Team includes veterans from Anduril, Boeing, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX, providing a steep learning curve and high-performance peer group. - **Work Policy**: **In-Office** (Torrance, CA and Irvine, CA). The company explicitly values in-person collaboration. - **Growth Trajectory**: Early-stage (Seed) with rapid headcount growth, offering significant upside and career acceleration for early employees. ## Sources 1. [salientmotion.com](https://salientmotion.com/) 2. [salientmotion.com](https://salientmotion.com/careers) 3. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/salient-motion) 4. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/salient-motion) ## Other roles at Salient Motion - [CMM Operator - Quality Inspection](https://feeny.ai/job/cmm-operator-quality-inspection-salient-motion-saginaw-3zqnv0237amp) — Saginaw, MI - [Senior Power Electronics Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-power-electronics-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-4yn1dr63rg99) — Hawthorne, CA - [Engineering Co-op](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-co-op-salient-motion-hawthorne-5rzzp0jrk03p) — Hawthorne, CA - [Senior Mechanical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-mechanical-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-knkd3cv93mx2) — Hawthorne, CA - [Electrical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/electrical-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-05jbnk1ckz9w) — Hawthorne, CA - [People Operations Generalist](https://feeny.ai/job/people-operations-generalist-salient-motion-hawthorne-21ejkdqd2ggd) — Hawthorne, CA - [Controls Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/controls-engineer-salient-motion-hawthorne-ne6rfv91cwrf) — Hawthorne, CA - [Global Supply Chain Manager- Electronics](https://feeny.ai/job/global-supply-chain-manager-electronics-salient-motion-hawthorne-gcm3vx04a36d) — Hawthorne, CA - [Global Supply Chain Manager, Mechanical](https://feeny.ai/job/global-supply-chain-manager-mechanical-salient-motion-hawthorne-62aw33agrcak) — Hawthorne, CA - [Mechanical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/mechanical-engineer-salient-motion-saginaw-xes3gtct2jz4) — Saginaw, MI