---
title: 'Sr. Mechanical Engineer at Aurelius Systems'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/sr-mechanical-engineer-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-9be7xhn6d9cp'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-15'
---

# Sr. Mechanical Engineer at Aurelius Systems

- **Company:** Aurelius Systems
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $165k–$210k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-12
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-15
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/aureliussystems/a555155b-44cd-4f98-a255-b7d0ed8e7d48

## Job description

Who We Are: Aurelius Systems is a VC backed defense tech startup building autonomous, edge deployed directed energy systems for counter-UAS. We build laser weapons to shoot down drones. We're a small team of engineers, former US military, and subject matter experts scaling America's directed energy dominance. The first cost effective, reliable and robust laser weapon system. Our namesake isn't an accident. Marcus Aurelius wrote about doing the work in front of you, every day, without excuses. Henry Ford didn't wait for permission to reinvent manufacturing. That's how we operate small team, unreasonable output, no hiding behind the unachievable. In addition to our San Francisco lab, we opened our Detroit manufacturing hub and field test weekly on our own 400-acre private range. The Role and Your Impact: We need a Senior Mechanical Engineer who owns major mechanical subsystems on Archimedes end to end and makes them survive the field. That means ruggedization of a fiber laser system against shock, vibration, moisture and environmental extremes, plus the structure, thermal management and precision packaging around the laser head and beam director. You'll work hands on from architecture through bench validation, field correlation and the production handoff to our Detroit manufacturing hub, alongside our Staff and Principal engineers. What You'll Own:

- Mechanical design of major subsystems: laser source and head enclosures, gimbal and beam director structure, mounts
- Survivability to MIL-STD shock, vibration, humidity, dust and austere environments
- Thermal management for high-power laser and electronics packaging
- Precision and optomechanical packaging that holds alignment through shock and thermal cycles
- FEA (static, modal, random vibration, shock response spectrum) and correlation to test
- Test rigs, instrumentation and bench validation you build and run yourself
- DFM and the handoff to manufacturing in Detroit
- Design reviews and raising the bar for the junior ME team

What We're Looking For:

- 5+ years in mechanical engineering on ruggedized, field-deployable or high-performance systems
- At least one subsystem you took from prototype to production
- Strong FEA (ANSYS, Nastran, Abaqus or equivalent) and the bench work to back it up
- Hands-on design to MIL-STD-810 or equivalent shock and vibration standards
- Thermal design for high-power systems
- Evidence you learn fast. You got effective in a new domain in months, not years

Where you probably come from: Defense hardware, airborne or ground vehicle systems, F1 and high-performance automotive, aerospace, maritime, ruggedized electronics, or directed energy and field-deployed sensor programs. Domain matters less than shipping hardware that had to survive. We want to talk if: You've owned a system that had to survive shock, vibration and environmental extremes in a tight, deployable package, and you modeled it, built it, instrumented it and correlated it. Not a fit if: You've only done commercial or consumer product design, your work is simulation-only with no bench validation, or you've spent years on one narrow subcomponent without seeing the system around it. Nice to Haves:

- Laser, directed energy or high-power hardware
- Optical bench or precision instrument ruggedization
- MIL-STD-461 EMI/EMC awareness for mechanical integration
- Vehicle-mounted systems
- Manufacturing ramp experience

Education: BS or MS in Mechanical, Aerospace or related field. What you've built matters more than where you went to school. How You Operate:

- Extreme bias for action. You'd rather build a prototype tomorrow than model it for a month
- You characterize your own systems before the field does
- Comfortable with ambiguity and fast iteration in a startup environment
- You debug from first principles, not intuition alone
- Clear communicator across mechanical, electrical, optical, and software teams
- Self directed. You identify what needs to happen next and do it without being told

Why Join Aurelius Systems:

- Build more in 1 month than most engineers build in 1 year. We field test weekly. Your work goes downrange, not into a filing cabinet.
- Career velocity is real. At ~10 engineers, there are no layers between you and impact.
- Work on a problem that actually matters. Small cheap drones are changing warfare. Our laser systems are the asymmetric answer — infinite magazine, near zero cost per shot, scalable to every base, border, facility, and truck.
- Join the densest defense startup ecosystem in the country. California is where the next generation of defense companies are being built.

How We Work: Core hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 6. When we're sprinting toward a demo or field test, the team ramps up — nights, weekends, whatever it takes to ship. When the sprint lands, we ramp down. We don't manufacture intensity for show. Benefits:

- Competitive salary and equity
- United Health Care medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Flexible 18 days PTO plus 5 sick days
- Travel to field test events and range days
- Covered daily lunches and office snacks and drinks
- E-bike and scooter stipend up to $500
- Direct access to leadership and real ownership over your work

Export Control Notice: This role requires access to export-controlled information or items that require U.S. Person status. As defined by U.S. law, individuals who are any one of the following are considered to be a U.S. Person: (1) U.S. citizens, (2) legal permanent residents (a.k.a. green card holders), and (3) certain protected classes of asylees and refugees, as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).

## About Aurelius Systems

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Aurelius Systems builds autonomous, directed-energy laser systems to neutralize drone threats for military and defense applications.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, CA, USA
- **Founded**: Not publicly available (likely 2024 or early 2025 based on funding timeline)
- **Founders**: Michael LaFramboise (CEO, Co-Founder), John Marmaduke (CTO, Co-Founder)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Defense and Space Manufacturing (Directed Energy / Counter-UAS)
- **Target customers**: Military and defense organizations (DoD, allied nations) needing scalable, cost-effective defense against unmanned aircraft systems (UAS/drones).
- **Mission or purpose statement**: "Build the future of defense with autonomous directed energy built to stop drone threats at the speed of light, for the cost of electricity, anywhere they appear."

## Products & Services
- **[Archimedes]**: An autonomous counter-UAS laser defense system. Combines high-power directed energy lasers, advanced optical sensors, and AI-driven autonomy to detect, track, and neutralize aerial threats in seconds. Designed for field-portability, rapid deployment, and operation in a networked "defense grid" formation.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: $10.0M in total funding (Seed round, closed October 2025)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: General Catalyst (lead), Draper Associates (lead), and 9 other unnamed investors. The company has also been selected by the U.S. Army for testing (T-REX 26-2 exercise).
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew +187.5% year-over-year (to ~16 employees). 17 active job postings (monthly postings up +13.3%, quarterly +240%). Demonstrated live field performance at a major U.S. Army exercise in June 2026.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Cost-per-kill advantage**: Directed energy lasers fire for the cost of electricity (dollars per shot) vs. traditional missile-based counter-UAS systems that cost "hundreds of thousands per kill."
- **Full autonomy**: The system uses machine learning and optical sensing to detect and engage threats without requiring a human operator to watch a screen — a stated differentiator from other solutions on the market.
- **Speed of light engagement**: Neutralizes threats in seconds, not minutes.
- **COTS-based hardware**: Built on commercial off-the-shelf components for lower cost, faster production, and easier maintenance.
- **Field-proven**: Successfully demonstrated in adverse weather during the T-REX 26-2 exercise.

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling the company and its manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand from the U.S. military and allied nations.
- Deploying a networked defense grid of multiple Archimedes units for persistent, scalable protection of forces, facilities, and critical infrastructure.
- Continuing rapid R&D iterations driven by real-world field testing.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven work**: Directly contribute to protecting warfighters and critical assets — "build something that matters."
- **Fast-paced, small team culture**: Described as a small team that moves fast, tests in the field, and owns the full lifecycle from R&D to deployment.
- **Early-stage impact**: With only ~16 employees, new hires will have outsized influence and responsibility on the core product.
- **Location**: Based in San Francisco, CA — one of the few defense companies in a city built for tech talent.
- **Benefits**: Full medical, dental, and vision (United Healthcare), 18 days PTO + flexible sick days + 2-week winter break, daily catered lunch + stocked snacks, commuter stipend (up to $500 toward e-bike/scooter), on-site gym, and professional development reimbursement.
- **Work model**: In-office presence (San Francisco HQ). No hybrid/remote-first policy stated.
- **Engineering culture**: Emphasis on building hard things quickly, robotics, photonics, mechanical engineering, and AI/ML autonomy.

## Sources
1. [aureliussystems.com](https://www.aureliussystems.com/)
2. [aureliussystems.com/careers](https://www.aureliussystems.com/careers)
3. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/aureliussystems](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/aureliussystems)
4. [linkedin.com/company/aurelius-systems](https://www.linkedin.com/company/aurelius-systems)
5. [aureliussystems.com/leadership](https://www.aureliussystems.com/leadership)

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