At Aircapture, we’re creating and scaling a circular carbon economy to solve what we believe to be the challenge of our lifetime: the climate crisis. We supply commercial and industrial customers with clean CO₂ captured directly from the atmosphere, transforming a climate threat into a valuable resource. Solving a challenge of this scale takes people with different backgrounds, experiences, and ways of thinking. We value those differences and believe they make us a stronger team.
As a Senior Mechanical Engineer at Aircapture, you will be an essential member of our team, collaborating with Electrical and Process Engineers on our R&D efforts and improving installed systems. This is a very exciting time to join Aircapture as we expand our market share and revolutionize Direct Air Capture (“DAC”) technology. If you want to have a major impact at a groundbreaking climate technology startup, this is the role for you!
This role is onsite at our development and production facility in Berkeley, California.
Salary: $165,000-185,000 per year
What You’ll Do Here
- Design and develop mechanical systems for our next-generation DAC units, impacting the entire product lifecycle: concept, design, build, test, and deployment
- Translate prototypes into scalable, manufacturable systems while collaborating cross-functionally with electrical, controls, and systems teams
- Support field deployments and iterate technology based on real-world performance
- Work with vendors and manufacturing partners to bring systems into production
- Drive engineering rigor through testing, validation, and continuous improvement
Your Skills and Abilities Include
- Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent experience, Master’s degree a plus
- 7+ years of experience developing and scaling industrial or hardware systems, and a proven track record of taking products from design through build, test, and deployment
- Experience working with cross-functional teams in fast-paced environments–we are an early stage start-up and success requires flexibility and a solutions-oriented mindset and attitude
- Ability to operate both strategically and hands-on–you love to design and also don’t hesitate to pick up a wrench
- Strong fundamentals in mechanical design and system integration, including expertise in one or more of these focus areas:
- Experience with computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
- Background in radio frequency (RF) system design
- Experience with refrigeration or thermal systems
- Familiarity with contract manufacturing
- Experience with gas handling, processing, or liquefaction systems
- Experience with rotating machinery such as fans, compressors, and pumps
This position requires physical activities including climbing stairs or ladders, stooping, crouching to work on equipment, operating machinery and lifting and carrying loads of 50 lbs or more.
Aircapture strives to create a safe, inclusive, equitable and diverse workplace where everyone can do their best work. We hope you feel welcome here.
Skills Required
- Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent experience
- 10+ years of mechanical design experience
- Expertise in fluid flow management, mechanism design and dynamic seals
- Proficient with CAD systems and Solidworks
- Good knowledge of 3D modeling and generation of CAD drawings
- Ability to guide technicians through prototyping and testing process
What We Do
Aircapture’s modular, on-site technology captures climate-changing CO2 from the air, and puts it directly into our customers' production processes. The result is a greener, cleaner and cheaper product that can help their businesses go carbon neutral, or even negative. Previously, commercially available CO2 was produced and distributed only in ways that generate large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, result in product impurities and include the often-substantial friction costs from transportation. For every tonne of delivered CO2, we estimate two or more tonnes of CO2 are emitted into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming and creating significant supply chain emissions, the cost of which are likely to materially increase. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions alone is not enough to avoid catastrophic climate change. Atmospheric carbon dioxide removal addresses legacy emissions and drives the development of critical, sustainable carbon-negative infrastructure. By utilizing atmospheric CO2, we can actually turn back the hands of time – reversing much of the damage that has already been done – while enabling our customers to economically build new carbon-to-value industries and alleviate energy poverty on a global scale. Our mission is to use Direct Air Capture (DAC) to help achieve these goals. DAC can be sited practically anywhere. There are no natural or technical limits to its scale, the quantity of carbon dioxide it removes is verifiable and it is cost-effective today
