Staff Mechanical Engineer
Airborne Optical Systems
Burlington ON
Please note that to be considered for any position at PV Labs, all candidates must be eligible to meet the requirements of the Canadian Controlled-Goods Program of the Defense Production Act, and be able to hold and maintain a Canadian Security Clearance. If you are not clear about your eligibility, please consult the Government of Canada website HERE
About PVLabs
PVLabs builds advanced airborne imaging systems for missions where precision, reliability and clarity matter. Our teams design and deliver stabilized gimbals, electro-optical payloads, motion-control architectures, real-time image-chain technologies and laser-based subsystems used worldwide in ISR, public safety, search and rescue, government and motion picture applications.
Our work sits at the intersection of optics, stabilization, controls, mechanics, electronics and software. We turn demanding system requirements into airborne capability that must perform in dynamic, unforgiving environments - and remain manufacturable, supportable and trustworthy throughout its life.
About You as a Staff Mechanical Engineer
You are a mechanical engineer with deep design judgment and a whole-system view. You understand how structures, precision mechanisms, thermal behaviour, optical alignment, mass properties, electronics packaging, control performance, manufacturing variation and environmental loads interact - and you can turn that understanding into decisions other people can build from.
You are as interested in strengthening the engineering system as you are in solving the immediate technical problem. You establish clarity where requirements or ownership are ambiguous, make evidence and risk visible, and help other engineers become stronger independent owners. You know when a design needs elegance, when it needs a pragmatic answer, and when short-term pressure is creating long-term product risk.
You lead without waiting for reporting authority. You communicate directly, invite challenge, make decisions at the right level and follow issues through to verified closure. You operate like an owner because, at PVLabs, every employee is also a shareholder.
About the Role
The Staff Mechanical Engineer is a role with accountability that extends across products, programs and disciplines. You will define and evolve mechanical architecture, common interfaces, design and analysis practices, qualification approaches and product-realization methods for high-performance airborne electro-optical systems.
You will still engage directly in consequential engineering work. The difference is scale: success is measured not only by the quality of your own design, but by whether several teams can produce compatible, robust, manufacturable and supportable outcomes because the architecture, evidence expectations and technical ownership are coherent.
Staff Engineers are credible candidates for appointment to the PVLabs Engineering Council. Appointment is not automatic with level. When appointed, you represent the health of Mechanical Engineering and PVLabs as a whole - not only the priorities of your current project.
What You Will Be Accountable For
Cross Product Mechanical Architecture and Design Integrity
- Define and evolve mechanical architectures, load paths, packaging principles, datum structures, interfaces, modularity, assembly strategies and service approaches that can support multiple payloads or product variants without forcing inappropriate commonality.
- Protect the integrity of precision mechanisms, optical mounts, payload structures, enclosures, cooling solutions, cable-management systems and associated ground-support equipment from concept through production and in-service support.
- Establish the level of design evidence appropriate to the consequence of the decision, and ensure requirements, assumptions, interfaces, margins, failure modes and residual risks remain explicit.
Whole System Integration
- Resolve mechanical decisions in the context of optical alignment and line-of-sight stability, control bandwidth and plant behaviour, electrical and CCA packaging, thermal management, software-dependent behaviour, manufacturing capability and mission environment.
- Lead cross-discipline trade studies and technical reviews where effects are distributed across Systems, Optics, Electrical, FPGA and Gateware, Embedded Software, Controls, Manufacturing, Quality and Project Engineering.
- Make interfaces, decision ownership, maturity, dependencies and risk visible early enough for teams and programs to act before they become integration failures.
Analysis Verification and Qualification
- Set and review expectations for structural, dynamic, fatigue and thermal analysis, including load cases, factors, model fidelity, boundary conditions, sensitivities, independent checks, correlation and treatment of uncertainty.
- Shape risk-based verification and environmental qualification strategies using inspection, analysis, demonstration and test; ensure evidence closes the requirement rather than merely completes an activity.
- Lead diagnosis of coupled failures across design, process, supplier, assembly, environment and operating conditions, then convert the learning into stronger architecture, standards and verification methods.
Product Realization and Lifecycle Performance
- Embed manufacturability, assembly, inspection, alignment, supplier capability, tooling, configuration control, serviceability and lifecycle cost into architecture and design decisions - not as late-stage corrections.
- Use production, nonconformance, yield, reliability and field-service evidence to change design rules, product platforms and supplier strategies when recurring problems reveal a system weakness.
- Support significant supplier, production and field issues through containment, fact-based root cause, controlled corrective action and verified closure while preserving appropriate functional authority.
Technical Leadership and Capability Building
- Develop Senior and developing Mechanical Engineers into independent technical owners through deliberate delegation, review, coaching and decision framing; do not become the permanent approval bottleneck.
- Create and maintain reusable design patterns, analysis methods, qualification practices, review criteria, decision records and technical knowledge that reduce rework and key-person dependency.
- Raise the quality of estimates, reviews and engineering judgment across teams, and intervene directly when the consequence or uncertainty warrants Staff-level attention.
Engineering Council and Company Stewardship
- When appointed to the Engineering Council, represent enterprise mechanical health and bring evidence-based positions on architecture, design margins, materials and processes, qualification, technical debt and product-family evolution.
- Challenge weak evidence and surface cross-product risk while respecting the decision rights of Product, Systems, Program, Quality, Operations and executive leadership.
- Translate Council direction into completed action within the discipline, and protect long-term product integrity when immediate project pressure creates hidden risk.
Expected Outcomes
A strong Staff Mechanical Engineer leaves a visible effect beyond the work personally completed. Expected outcomes include:
- Mechanical architectures and common interfaces that support product reuse and controlled variation without obscuring product-specific risk.
- Consistent datum, tolerance, materials and process, analysis, review, verification and release practices that reduce preventable integration and production failure.
- Structural, thermal and dynamic decisions supported by credible models, explicit assumptions, appropriate checks and meaningful correlation.
- Recurring design, assembly, supplier or field problems converted into sustained improvements rather than repeatedly managed as operational exceptions.
- Measurable improvement in one or more cross-team outcomes such as cycle time, redesign, qualification closure, nonconformance, yield, reliability, serviceability or technical-risk retirement.
- Senior and developing engineers who can independently own significant mechanical outcomes, with critical knowledge no longer concentrated in one individual.
- Clear technical options, consequences, recommendations and decision records for Engineering Council, product and program leadership.
- Accurate visibility to progress, remaining work, uncertainty and risk - especially when the news is uncomfortable or affects shared delivery commitments.
Decision Authority
Authority is exercised within approved product architecture, requirements, budgets, company standards and delegated technical-governance boundaries. The Staff Engineer is expected to act autonomously where the decision is theirs, align where the outcome is shared, and escalate where risk acceptance or commitment belongs elsewhere.
Experience and Evidence
Experience ranges describe the background commonly needed to demonstrate this role. They are not automatic thresholds. Staff level is established by sustained evidence of scope, judgment, organizational influence and outcomes - not by tenure, credentials, technical reputation or compensation position alone.
- Typically 10 to 16 or more years in mechanical, aerospace, mechatronics or complex product development, with substantial experience beyond a single product architecture or project context.
- Typically 7 to 12 or more years directly owning significant mechanical subsystems through requirements, architecture, detailed design, analysis, release, build, integration, qualification, production and lifecycle support.
- A degree or diploma in Mechanical, Aerospace, Mechatronics or a related discipline, or equivalent demonstrated capability. Advanced education or a professional designation may strengthen the profile but does not establish the level by itself.
- Recognized depth in one or more relevant domains such as precision mechanisms, structural dynamics, thermal management, opto-mechanics, electro-mechanical packaging, environmental qualification or high-reliability product realization.
- Strong systems literacy across optics, controls, electronics, embedded software, manufacturing, quality, suppliers and lifecycle support.
- Demonstrated cross-product impact through reusable architecture or methods, resolution of systemic problems, measurable delivery improvement and development of other credible technical owners.
Technical Toolkit
The exact toolset will vary by program. Relevant capability may include
- advanced three-dimensional CAD and controlled drawing release normally SolidWorks and PDM;
- ASME Y14.5 GD&T and tolerance analysis;
- structural, modal, fatigue and thermal analysis using tools such as SolidWorks Simulation, ANSYS, Abaqus or Nastran;
- materials and manufacturing processes spanning machining, metals, casting, composites, additive methods and bonded or fastened assemblies;
- laboratory measurement and test instrumentation;
- requirements, issue, document and configuration systems used by PVLabs.
High Value Experience
- Airborne, defence, aerospace, stabilized electro-optical, precision mechatronic or other harsh-environment systems.
- Design and qualification against applicable military, environmental, aircraft-safety or customer assurance requirements.
- Precision drive mechanisms, bearings, actuators, structural load paths, optical mounting and alignment, vibration isolation, thermal management and electronics packaging.
- Supplier development, first-article realization, production transition, nonconformance and field-failure resolution.
- Technical-governance forums, architecture councils or other cross-functional decision bodies where authority is exercised through evidence and influence.
- Creativity, Curiosity and Problem Solving, with healthy obsession for attention to detail and right sizing solutions
- Not afraid to seek out responsibility and opportunities to take the lead
- A confident technical communicator who can articulate ideas and concepts, but who also knows that confidence in communication also means the ability to ask for help or collaboration when you need it
- Creative problem solver with an appreciation for detail
- A continuous-improvement approach to design, processes and practices
Eligibility
Because of the nature of our work, candidates must be eligible to meet the requirements of Canada's Controlled Goods Program under the Defence Production Act and be able to obtain and maintain the security clearances required for assigned work.
What Is in It for You
At PVLabs, your mechanical engineering decisions become airborne capability. You will shape how advanced EO and IR payloads survive, stabilize, align, cool, integrate, qualify and move from concept into repeatable production - not only on one design, but across the systems and engineers that follow it.
You will work with experienced experts across optics, control systems, embedded systems, FPGA and Gateware, manufacturing engineering and program delivery. The solutions we're developing are technically demanding, the feedback is physical and immediate, and the distance between a sound decision and a better product is refreshingly short.
Our culture is built on three immutable elements: mastery, autonomy and purpose. We operate on a year-round four-day work week, and we trust our employees to make the real state visible, take responsibility for the whole outcome, and leave the company more capable than they found it.
If you want to build airborne imaging systems that must perform in dynamic, unforgiving environments - and help create the engineering capability behind them - you can do some of the most consequential work of your career here.
