Senior Mechanical Engineer (m/w/d)

Hades is a modern mining company on a mission to transform how the world accesses critical resources and energy. Founded in 2025, we're developing ultra-deep laser drilling technologies that push the limits of what's possible underground. Based in Munich, we've raised over €20M in funding from leading European resilience investors including HV Capital, Headline, Project A and Visionaries Tomorrow. We're now building a world-class team to bring this vision to life.

Why Join Hades?
At Hades, you'll be part of a high-growth, high-impact deep-tech startup making a tangible difference. Our mission is critical: to secure sovereignty for Europe through the responsible and efficient extraction of vital materials and energy. We offer:

• Impactful Work: Contribute directly to solving global challenges related to resource scarcity and energy independence.
• Cutting-Edge Technology: Work at the forefront of ultra-deep drilling, leveraging advanced engineering and innovative approaches.
• Growth Potential: Join a rapidly expanding company with significant opportunities for personal and professional development.
• Dynamic Environment: Thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative, and entrepreneurial setting in the heart of Munich.
• Purpose-Driven Mission: Be part of a team dedicated to a sustainable and secure future for Europe.

As a Senior Mechanical Engineer, you will own the mechanical architecture of Cerberus, our high-power laser drilling system. Your scope runs from the downhole tool and its pressure-bearing housings to the surface deployment hardware. You'll make the key design decisions, set the qualification strategy, and take hardware from concept to field deployment at multi-kilometre depths, hundreds of bar of pressure, high temperatures and in abrasive rock.

This is a senior, hands-on technical leadership role. You'll work directly with the founding team and with engineers in optics, robotics, geoscience and applied physics. You'll define how mechanical engineering is done at Hades: design standards, review processes, test philosophy. As the team grows, you'll mentor and help hire the engineers who join it.

Responsibilities

• Own the mechanical architecture of the laser drilling tool and deployment system, including pressure housings, sealing systems, structural components, thermal management and deployment mechanisms. You make the key trade-offs and document them.
• Define and lead the analysis and qualification strategy. This covers structural, thermal, fatigue and fluid analysis (FEA/CFD), plus test campaigns that prove designs against extreme downhole loads, pressures and temperatures.
• Establish engineering processes, including design reviews, drawing and tolerancing standards, material and supplier qualification, and configuration management, without slowing a fast-moving startup.
• Lead design for manufacturing and assembly, and build a reliable supplier base for precision machining, special materials, seals and pressure-rated components.
• Design and run test rigs and test campaigns under representative pressure, temperature and load, and turn the results into design iterations quickly.
• Take hardware into the field. You'll lead mechanical integration, commissioning and troubleshooting on real drilling sites.
• Act as the mechanical interface to the optical, electrical and software teams, so that the whole system is robust rather than each subsystem being optimised on its own.
• Mentor engineers, raise the technical bar, and help grow the mechanical engineering team.

• BSc or MSc in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering or a related field. A PhD is a plus but not required.
• 8+ years designing high-reliability mechanical systems for harsh environments. Oil & gas downhole tools, aerospace, space, defence, fusion, subsea, or similar domains are strongly preferred.
• A track record of owning complex hardware from concept through qualification to field-proven or flight-proven deployment, as the technical lead rather than a contributor.
• Deep expertise in pressure vessel and pressure-housing design, sealing technologies, fatigue and fracture, materials selection for extreme conditions, and tolerance analysis. Familiarity with relevant standards (for example ASME, API or ECSS) is a plus.
• Hands-on fluency in CAD (Siemens NX, SolidWorks or equivalent) and FEA (Ansys, Abaqus or similar). You check analysis yourself, not just review it.
• Experience defining test and qualification programmes and building the rigs to execute them.
• Experience mentoring engineers and leading design reviews, ideally in a startup or other high-ownership environment.
• Exceptional ability, shown for example through patents, landmark programmes, top-tier academics, or having built something hard from scratch.
• Excellent written and oral communication in English. German is a plus.
• Willing to live in the greater Munich area and to travel to field sites.

• An opportunity to make a huge impact on the future of Europe by increasing resilience and providing a path to resource and energy sovereignty
• A senior role with real ownership: you will shape the mechanical engineering function of a deep-tech company from its early days
• A human-centered company culture with super nice and supportive colleagues
• A great sense of community through team events and fun in and outside the office
• Highly competitive compensation, benefits and equity package

If you have built hardware that survives where most hardware fails, and you want to do it at the frontier of deep drilling, we'd like to hear from you. Apply with your CV and any other relevant documents, such as a portfolio, patents or publications.