Mechanical Engineer

About us

Sierra BioSystems designs and builds oligonucleotide synthesizers, the instruments researchers use to make their own DNA and RNA. Our customers range from university core facilities to pharma companies and CDMOs around the world. We build in Sonora, California, in the Sierra foothills, and have a branch in Germany with a dedicated service network throughout North America and Europe.

We're a little over 20 people, small enough that your work goes into every instrument that ships.

Our mission, at the end of the day, is to serve the researcher. We remove the barriers between them and their results, and we do this by making instruments that are reliable and offering service that treats their deadline as ours.

Our mantras are: Honesty above all. Own the problem. We're in it together.

Here is the role:

You'll own mechanical engineering for every instrument we make, from the design to the part on the shelf. The CEO sets product direction and requirements, and you own how it gets designed, documented and built.

What you'll own

• Mechanical design and design changes across our product lines, starting with the redesign of our flagship instrumentation to cost and performance targets
• Drawings, BOMs, part numbers and revision control, including the engineering change process from request to release
• Engineering data in our ERP: item master, BOMs and routings that match what's actually built
• Assembly documents and standard work, written with our Production Lead
• Machinists and suppliers: RFQs, drawing questions, first-article inspection and cost
• Fixtures, jigs and test equipment for the production floor
• Root cause on field failures and returned parts, with the fix designed back in
• Prototype builds for new products

Your first 90 days

1. Build alongside the production team for your first 30 days, until you know every product by hand
2. Audit existing drawings and BOMs, and set up the part-numbering, revision and release scheme
3. Load one product's BOM into the ERP so it matches what's actually on the floor
4. Agree new design requirements and plan with the CEO

What you bring

• BS in mechanical engineering or equivalent
• Experience designing automated precision electromechanical equipment: lab instruments, medical devices, semiconductor or aerospace
• SolidWorks (or similar), production drawings and GD&T
• You've owned revision control and released parts to machinists yourself
• You've worked with BOMs inside an ERP or PLM system

Nice to have: fluidics, valves or pneumatics; cost-down and design-for-assembly work; experience going through an ERP implementation; ISO 9001 or 13485.

Pay and benefits

• $120,000–$160,000+ base, depending on experience, plus a bonus tied to the redesign hitting its cost and date targets
• Medical with company-paid premiums for you and your kids, plus an HRA
• Company-paid employee dental
• 401(k) with a safe-harbor match of up to 3.5%
• 10 days of vacation plus federal holidays

Location: 100% on site in Sonora, CA, about 2 hours from Sacramento and the Bay Area.

Sierra BioSystems is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other protected status.