Senior Mechanical Design Engineer

Pay: $40 - $90/hour

Role Title: Senior Mechanical Design Engineer

Role Type: Contractor (~15hrs/week)

micro1 is engaging Senior Mechanical Design Engineers to contribute to a customer's project involving complex CAD assembly exploration and AI advancement. In this role, you'll apply your expertise to help train next-generation AI systems. Your work will shape how models learn, reason, and perform through high-quality, real-world input. No prior experience in AI is required — your domain knowledge is what matters.

Scope of Work

• Analyze and dissect multi-part mechanical assemblies to identify critical design decisions, constraints, and potential failure points that challenge expert reasoning.
• Formulate challenging, non-obvious technical questions that test real-world mechanical design judgment, ensuring relevance and difficulty beyond junior-level understanding.
• Validate and document defensible, exact answers directly from CAD models, ensuring clear traceability and accuracy.
• Review AI-generated outputs, pinpoint breakdowns or inaccuracies in mechanical reasoning, and suggest targeted improvements.
• Flag ambiguous, trivial, or unanswerable questions, refining or sharpening them for clarity and precision.
• Thoroughly document edge cases and sources of disagreement within answers to maintain strict verifiability.
• Communicate findings and reasoning in clear, professional written and verbal form to support continuous project improvement.

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience creating and overseeing multi-part mechanical assemblies from concept, not just from existing drawings.
• Mastery in at least one major parametric CAD tool (SolidWorks, Creo, NX, CATIA, Inventor, Fusion, Onshape, or Solid Edge).
• Demonstrated experience in teaching, mentoring, or leading — whether through formal instruction, leading design reviews, or coaching engineering teams.
• Expertise in design intent, assembly reasoning, mechanism and kinematic analysis, and robust GD&T/tolerance judgment.
• Background in at least one discipline: industrial machinery and automation, robotics, automotive and heavy equipment, aerospace and defense, medical devices, consumer products, or tooling and fixture design.
• Exceptional written English communication skills — your documentation directly influences project deliverables.
• Bonus: Experience with FreeCAD, advanced GD&T/tolerance analysis, or formal design review leadership.