Mechanical Engineer (Early Career)

About K1 Industries

For the first time in decades, power demand growth in the US has jumped 5x, driving multi-year lead times for critical power infrastructure. K1 builds and deploys modular power packages at scale, now.

This is a small, early-stage team. You will have influence on every major technical decision, and see your work running on real hardware within months, not years.

The Role

We are hiring an early-career Mechanical Engineer to help design, build, and test key components of our power plants. You will work closely with senior engineers on real hardware from day one. We do not expect you to know everything coming in, but we do expect you to have gotten your hands dirty somewhere: a research lab, a capstone, an internship, Formula SAE, a personal build, anything where you turned a design into a physical thing that worked (or failed and taught you why).

Our product is inherently mechanical: high-speed rotating machinery, dynamic loads, and high-power temperature management. You will learn these systems deeply. What we care about most is how you think from first principles and how fast you move from idea to tested hardware.

What You'll Work On

Concept Engineering and First-Principles Design

• Help translate design challenges into clear functional requirements

• Build early concept designs using order-of-magnitude estimates to set system bounds

• Apply first-principles tools: free body diagrams, energy balances, pressure/flow estimates

• Talk to vendors and the team early and often to pressure-test ideas

CAD and Subsystem Design

• Produce 3D CAD models of components to inform layouts, interfaces, and clash checks

• Help define subsystem specs and the mechanical, electrical, and flow interfaces between them

Detailed Design and Analysis

• Develop higher-fidelity CAD toward as-built level under guidance from senior engineers

• Learn to analyze designs carefully. With high-power machinery, failures can be catastrophic, so we build the habit of checking: mechanical stresses, vibration and fatigue, contact loads, tolerance stack-ups, thermal growth, and fluids under pressure and temperature

• Document your analysis, design decisions, and reasoning clearly and concisely

Build and Test

• Get hardware built and tested quickly. Speed to power is our edge

• Hand detailed drawings to fabrication partners and follow parts through to delivery

• Help develop test setups: structures, sensors, and schedules

• Test early and often. We win by finding problems fast and iterating quickly

You Might Be a Great Fit If...

• You have a degree (or are finishing one) in Mechanical Engineering or a related field

• You have hands-on hardware experience from a lab, capstone, internship, competition team, or personal project

• You can show an example of taking something from concept through design to a built and tested result

• You are comfortable with CAD and core mechanical engineering fundamentals

• You are excited to own problems, ask for help when stuck, and move fast

Bonus Points For Any Of:

• Coursework, research, or project experience with turbomachinery, engines, or rotating equipment

• Work involving high temperature, pressure, or speed conditions

• Exposure to gearboxes, couplings, generators, lubrication systems, or exhaust/environmental systems

• Time in a startup, lab, or small-team environment with real ownership

Compensation

Competitive salary and meaningful early-stage equity. As one of the first hires at a venture-backed company, your equity participation will reflect the impact and ownership this role carries. Standard benefits package including health, dental, and vision insurance.

Location

This role is based in the Reno / Carson City, NV area with regular time at K1's test facility outside Reno, NV. We need someone who is local or willing to relocate. If you are not local, significant and regular travel to the site will be required.