Head of Mechanical Engineering- LA

Kela is the open, secure operating system that re-orchestrates the modern military stack - integrating any commercial or military technology on hand, without vendor lock. That openness and breadth is the point: sitting at the intersection of hundreds of integrations, we see where true hardware bottlenecks emerge before anyone else does, and we build the solutions to solve them. Backed by Sequoia, Lux, and In-Q-Tel, Kela pairs US industrial strength with Israeli battle-tested innovation to compress capability development from years to days.

This role is currently remote, with an engineering office opening in Southern California this year. We plan to maintain an in-office culture to support high-cadence hardware development and collaboration, with flexibility as needed for travel and global coordination.

Your core mission is to build and lead mechanical engineering at Kela in the US. You are the ME lead for our two business lines - Kinetics and CUAS - and for the new business lines we stand up next. You own the mechanical design of our products from concept through full-rate domestic production, and you build the elite ME team that makes it happen. This is a hands-on leadership role. Your roles and responsibilities include:

• Own mechanical engineering across Kinetics and CUAS, and lead ME for new business lines as they come online
• Serve as the senior technical authority for mechanical design: requirements, architecture, design reviews, and qualification
• Build and lead the US ME team - own the hiring plan, recruit top talent, and build a culture of trust
• Own design-for-manufacture: work with our head of US manufacturing to take products from small-batch builds to rate production (targeting hundreds of units per day)
• Lead ME support for qualification and safety board approval of our kinetics products, in coordination with the Israel engineering team
• Set the ME toolchain, standards, and processes - keep us fast, and fix anything that slows engineers down

18-mo outcomes

• First 3 mo: Complete onboarding by embedding within the Kinetics and CUAS teams and taking technical ownership of the current mechanical designs. Establish working relationships with the Israel engineering teams and the head of US manufacturing. Complete the hiring plan for the US ME team and begin recruiting. Identify the top mechanical risks in each product line and put mitigation plans in place.
• 6 mo: 3-4 ME hires onboarded. Mechanical design work supporting safety board qualification of our kinetics products until complete and approved. DFM plan in place for rate production of both product lines. ME design standards, review process, and toolchain established.
• 18 mo: A fully built ME organization running both business lines and ready to spin up new ones. Products designed for and in full-scale domestic rate production. Kela's mechanical engineering is a competitive advantage: fast, rigorous, and faster from concept to the field than anyone else in the market.

Why this role

You would be the founding mechanical engineering leader in the US - not inheriting an org, but building one, with the autonomy and resources to do it right. The problems are the kind worth solving: real hardware, extreme environments, production at hundreds per day, and products that matter. You will work with a small team of very technical people, with a direct line to company leadership, and your scope grows with every new business line we launch.