As a Mechanical Design & Prototyping Engineer at Haast, you'll design and build physical aircraft systems for autonomous medical logistics. You'll work across CAD, structures, prototyping, and flight-test support, focusing on customer-first design and rapid iteration. This hands-on role involves designing parts, building prototypes, testing, and improving designs based on user feedback.

Responsibilities

Design and develop airframes, structures, mechanisms, mounts, fixtures, and prototype hardware with a focus on user experience and customer requirements.
Own CAD for key airframe and mechanical systems, ensuring designs are manufacturable and tailored to customer use cases.
Design payload bays, landing gear, motor mounts, avionics mounts, access panels, covers, brackets, internal structure, and payload compartments optimized for user accessibility and operational efficiency.
Build prototypes using 3D printing, composites, foam, carbon fiber, hand tools, and other rapid fabrication methods, continuously iterating based on user testing and feedback.
Create detailed part drawings, assembly documentation, BOMs, and revision history focused on clarity and ease of use for manufacturing and customer support.
Work with avionics and controls engineers to package sensors, wiring, batteries, antennas, and payload interfaces that support real-world use scenarios.
Improve the aircraft for buildability, repairability, serviceability, usability, and repeatability.
Support aircraft assembly, pre-flight inspections, field repairs, post-test teardown, and customer-driven design changes.
Track mass properties, center of gravity, structural changes, manufacturing constraints, and customer impact.
Help move Haast from one-off prototypes toward aircraft hardware that can support a real autonomous medical logistics network, with customer experience at the core.

Requirements

Strong CAD skills in SolidWorks, Fusion 360, Onshape, CATIA, NX, or similar.
Experience building real hardware and iterating with customer feedback, not just designing it.
Good mechanical intuition around structures, load paths, fasteners, adhesives, vibration, packaging, manufacturability, and usability.
Comfortable working with 3D printing, composites, foam, carbon fiber, basic shop tools, and rapid prototyping in service of user-centered solutions.
Ability to move quickly without being sloppy, while maintaining customer-focused quality.
Strong ownership and initiative. You don’t wait around for perfect requirements and proactively engage with user-related challenges.
Good documentation habits so the team can actually track what changed and how it addresses customer needs.
Excitement to work in a startup environment where the aircraft, process, and company are all being built at the same time, centered on customer-driven design.

Nice to have

Experience with UAVs, RC aircraft, fixed-wing aircraft, VTOL aircraft, robotics, motorsports, or aerospace hardware.
Composite layup, vacuum bagging, mold design, or foam-core construction experience.
Experience with lightweight aircraft structures, spars, ribs, motor mounts, control surfaces, or landing gear.
Familiarity with aircraft CG, stability, vibration, thermal, avionics packaging, and user experience constraints.
Experience on a student design team, aerospace startup, robotics team, race team, or a fast-moving hardware project where customer feedback played a significant role.