Senior / Principal Design Engineer

Senior / Principal Design Engineer, Zev Technologies

A Note on Role Structure

This position can be structured as an individual-contributor Senior or Principal Design Engineer, or as a Design Engineering Manager, depending on the candidate. The core need is the same either way: an experienced mechanical design leader who can coach and mentor the team, build durable processes, and raise the organization's engineering discipline. Formal people-management is not required - the priority is someone who is a strong technical mentor and is comfortable guiding others - but candidates who are leadership-motivated and interested in a management path are encouraged to discuss that option.

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced, hands-on mechanical design engineer to serve as a senior technical leader for our engineering team. The team currently lacks a seasoned voice to help focus its efforts, mentor less experienced engineers, and establish the processes, procedures, and documentation the organization needs to operate consistently and predictably. This role exists to help move the organization away from a reactive, quality-issue-driven way of working and toward a genuine culture of continuous improvement.

The ideal candidate has a strong mechanism design background, deep fluency in GD&T, and is comfortable acting as the technical bridge between Engineering, Quality, Operations, Procurement, and Manufacturing - including direct, hands-on work with outside suppliers and contract manufacturers.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership, Coaching & Mentoring 

• Serve as a senior technical resource and mentor for the design engineering team, strengthening the team's design judgment, GD&T fluency, and design-for-manufacturability (DFM/DFA) thinking.

• Provide day-to-day technical guidance and help unblock the team on complex mechanism design, tolerancing, and manufacturability problems.

• Help the team focus on and complete its highest-priority work; coach engineers through problems rather than simply solving them personally.

• Support skill development and growth conversations for team members, in partnership with engineering leadership.

Planning, Prioritization & Roadmap Alignment 

• Prioritize the team's tasks and projects based on the company's product roadmap and high-level business priorities and goals.

• Partner with Product and Project Management to support planning, task timelines, and resourcing needed to execute the roadmap.

• Translate roadmap priorities into actionable, sequenced engineering plans, and adjust team focus as priorities shift.

Process, Documentation & Continuous Improvement 

• Design, document, and implement engineering processes and standards where they don't yet exist - including design review, drawing standards, engineering change control (ECR/ECN), and design release checklists.

• Lead the shift from a reactive, firefighting approach to a proactive continuous improvement culture, introducing practices such as root cause analysis and structured lessons-learned reviews.

• Build and maintain GD&T standards, drawing templates, and design best-practice documentation to raise the team's baseline skill level.

• Track and drive measurable improvement in metrics such as first-pass drawing quality, supplier acceptance rate, and design-related nonconformances.

Mechanical Design & GD&T 

• Own and/or review mechanism and mechanical component design work, applying sound engineering judgment for manufacturability, tolerancing, and assembly.

• Apply and teach GD&T per ASME Y14.5; review and correct team drawings to raise overall GD&T fluency and consistency across the organization.

• Design go/no-go and functional gaging to support supplier incoming inspection, in-house quality inspection, and production-line checks.

• Create and review parametric CAD models and production drawings, primarily in SolidWorks.

Supplier, Manufacturing & Quality Partnership 

• Identify, evaluate, and qualify new suppliers and third-party/contract manufacturers; own the technical side of supplier onboarding.

• Work directly with suppliers to resolve design, tolerancing, and manufacturability issues.

• Partner closely with Quality to define inspection criteria, support root-cause on nonconformances, and improve incoming and in-process inspection methods.

• Partner with Operations, Procurement, and Manufacturing to ensure designs are producible, cost-effective, and support on-time delivery.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience. 

• 8+ years of mechanical design experience for Senior level, or 12+ years for Principal level, with a demonstrated track record in mechanism design. 

• Deep, demonstrated expertise in GD&T (ASME Y14.5), with the ability to teach and mentor others in its application and interpretation. 

• Experience designing go/no-go and functional inspection gaging. 

• Strong CAD design and drawing skills; SolidWorks strongly preferred. 

• Direct, hands-on experience sourcing, vetting, and managing suppliers and contract manufacturers.

• Demonstrated experience working cross-functionally with Quality, Operations, Procurement, and Manufacturing. 

• Comfortable coaching and mentoring other engineers - whether or not the role carries formal management responsibility.

• Experience prioritizing engineering work against a product roadmap, and partnering with Product/Project Management on planning, timelines, and resourcing. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in the firearms industry, or personal interest/familiarity with firearms design, manufacturing, or use.

• Experience building engineering processes and documentation from the ground up in a small- to mid-size manufacturing environment.

• Familiarity with formal continuous improvement methodologies (Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen).

What Success Looks Like

• The team has documented, repeatable design and release processes that didn't exist before.

• GD&T usage and drawing quality across the organization are visibly more consistent and correct.

• Supplier and vendor relationships are more structured, with clearer specs, gaging, and inspection criteria.

• The team is measurably shifting from reactive problem-solving to proactive, continuous improvement.

• Engineers on the team report feeling more focused, supported, and developed.