---
title: 'Senior Mechanical Engineer at Mesh Optical Technologies'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-mechanical-engineer-mesh-optical-technologies-gardena-qck6j103vmsk'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Senior Mechanical Engineer at Mesh Optical Technologies

- **Company:** Mesh Optical Technologies
- **Location:** Gardena, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-02-17
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/meshopticaltechnologies/jobs/4134519009

## Job description

## SENIOR MECHANICAL ENGINEER

Mesh Optical Technologies was founded on the belief that optical photons will be at the center of advanced technologies in the coming century. Making advanced technology ubiquitous means building at scale, and that’s exactly what we’re doing at Mesh.

We are seeking a Senior Mechanical Engineer to lead development of major mechanical subsystems across our optical hardware platform. This is a senior individual contributor role reserved for engineers who demonstrate exceptional technical depth, ownership, and execution capability. You will independently drive complex mechanical challenges from first principles through production ramp, influencing subsystem architecture and ensuring performance, reliability, and manufacturability. Senior Mechanical Engineers at Mesh are trusted to solve ambiguous, high-impact problems and set the technical standard for mechanical design within their scope.

## RESPONSIBILITIES:

- Independently own mechanical development of major subsystems from concept through production, including requirements definition, design, analysis, prototyping, and ramp support
- Design precision electro-mechanical assemblies with rigorous tolerance control across optical, electrical, and mechanical interfaces
- Perform and defend structural, thermal, and tolerance analysis to drive design decisions, validate performance margins, and support design reviews
- Drive design-for-manufacturability and design-for-automation decisions with minimal oversight, ensuring mechanical designs support automated assembly, precision placement, and high-yield production
- Lead supplier technical discussions, component qualification, and production ramp execution, including resolution of supplier-side manufacturing issues
- Identify mechanical risks early and define validation strategies to retire them, including test fixture specification and prototype validation planning
- Contribute meaningfully to system-level architecture discussions, influencing packaging strategy, interface definitions, and cross-domain trade-offs with optical, electrical, and thermal stakeholders
- Establish and maintain mechanical design documentation, including detailed drawings with GD&T, specifications, and engineering change records
- Support root-cause investigation of mechanical failures across prototype, validation, and production stages, driving corrective action back into design guidelines

## QUALIFICATIONS:

- Bachelor's or Master's degree in mechanical engineering or a related discipline
- 5+ years of experience designing complex hardware systems, with demonstrated exceptional individual contributor capability in production hardware environments
- Proven ownership of major subsystems through production ramp, including direct accountability for performance, schedule, and manufacturability outcomes
- Strong first-principles foundation in mechanics of materials, heat transfer, and tolerance analysis
- Experience designing tight-tolerance precision assemblies with multi-domain interfaces
- Proficiency in professional 3D CAD tools (NX, SolidWorks, Creo, or equivalent)
- Proficiency in structural or thermal analysis tools (e.g., ANSYS Mechanical or equivalent FEA)
- Experience working directly with suppliers and driving technical decisions through component qualification and production readiness
- Willingness to work extended hours and weekends as needed

## PREFERRED EXPERIENCE:

- Experience in optical, photonic, semiconductor, or high-performance computing hardware development
- Advanced simulation experience, including thermal analysis (e.g., ANSYS Icepak, Fluent, or equivalent CFD tools)
- Experience designing hardware for highly automated manufacturing environments, including familiarity with robotic assembly, precision fixturing, and in-line metrology constraints
- Experience with optomechanical design, including kinematic mounting, athermalization, or fiber-to-chip alignment
- Experience with materials selection for photonic or semiconductor-adjacent applications, including CTE matching, outgassing, and cleanliness considerations
- Familiarity with reliability qualification methodologies (e.g., HALT, HASS, or Telcordia-style environmental testing)
- Experience with configuration management, revision control, and PLM tools

## COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:

Pay range: Senior Mechanical Engineer: $140,000.00 - $180,000.00/per year

Title and base salary are determined on a case by case basis commensurate with experience and merit.

In addition to base salary, compensation for this role includes:

- Eligibility for long-term incentives including company stock options and discretionary bonuses awarded for exceptional achievements.
- Comprehensive medical, vision, and dental insurance with significant cost covered by the company for yourself and dependents.
- Paid parental leave and flexible PTO (3 weeks accrued vacation and 10 company holidays per year).
- 401(k) retirement plan access.
- Relocation assistance to sunny Los Angeles.

## About Mesh Optical Technologies

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Mesh Optical Technologies designs and manufactures advanced optical systems at scale, targeting hyperscale computing and AI infrastructure.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A - $50M led by Thrive Capital, as of February 2026)
- **Headquarters**: Los Angeles, California, United States
- **Founded**: Not publicly available
- **Founders**: Travis Brashears (Co-Founder & CEO), Cameron Ramos (Co-Founder & President)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Computer Hardware Manufacturing / Advanced Optics / Photonics
- **Target customers**: B2B – hyperscale data centers, AI compute clusters, and space-based optical communications
- **Mission or purpose**: "Advance the state of the art in optical manufacturing, closing a critical supply chain gap in hyperscale computing, and building the next generation of optical hardware on Earth and in space."

## Products & Services
- **Alpha C1 optical transceiver**: A 1.6 Terabits per second optical transceiver that linearly translates electrical signals to light. Designed for AI workloads and power-constrained data centers, it delivers better power efficiency, lower latency, and higher reliability. Its optical engine is manufactured entirely with flip chip die bonding – the same technology used to package chips in modern processors – enabling high-volume production.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of $50M (Series A, February 2026)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Thrive Capital (lead), plus two other major investors (names not specified)
- **Growth Signals**: 11 employees with 29 open job postings; 20% monthly headcount growth; team includes alumni from SpaceX, Intel, Apple, Helion, and other advanced manufacturing environments

## Competitive Advantages
- **Integrated design & manufacturing**: Unlike most photonics companies that treat manufacturing as a downstream exercise, Mesh designs and builds its own factories, closing the feedback loop between device physics, packaging, yield, and automation.
- **Flip chip die bonding**: The Alpha C1 uses a proven, high-volume chip-packaging technique, allowing rapid scaling to millions of units per year – a major departure from the manual, low-volume assembly typical of US optical manufacturing.

## Strategic Focus
- Scale production of the Alpha C1 transceiver to meet demand from AI clusters.
- Develop new high-volume optical manufacturing techniques for terrestrial and in-space infrastructure (laser links, deep space probes).
- Continue to hire across engineering, operations, and manufacturing to expand its Los Angeles-based factory and R&D capabilities.

## Why Work Here
- **Engineering culture**: "Build your own factory" – the team believes in engineering to the limit of physics and writing software that maximizes hardware capability.
- **Impact**: Opportunity to close a critical supply chain gap in US optical manufacturing and shape the next generation of computing infrastructure.
- **Work environment**: On-site in Los Angeles (two offices in the area); highly technical team with deep expertise from SpaceX, Intel, Apple, and other hardware leaders.
- **Growth**: Rapidly scaling startup with 29 open roles across electrical, mechanical, process, and manufacturing engineering, as well as operations and recruiting.

## Sources
1. [meshoptical.com](https://www.meshoptical.com/)
2. [meshoptical.com/blog](https://www.meshoptical.com/blog/introducing-mesh)
3. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/meshoptical)
4. [meshoptical.com/process](https://www.meshoptical.com/process)
5. [meshoptical.com/careers](https://www.meshoptical.com/careers-new)

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