Remote | Mechanical Design Engineer — Up to $80/hour

We are sharing a specialised consulting opportunity for senior mechanical design engineers with doctoral-level expertise and substantial hands-on experience owning production designs through CAD development, GD&T, tolerance analysis, DFM, and drawing release.

This role supports an advanced AI research initiative focused on developing highly challenging engineering problems grounded in realistic mechanical design scenarios. Selected professionals will author original free-response problems, prepare complete expert-level solutions, and validate each problem against frontier AI models to ensure it requires sophisticated professional reasoning.

Key Responsibilities

Mechanical Design Problem Development

• Author original, technically rigorous free-response problems based on realistic mechanical and product-design scenarios
• Develop questions requiring advanced engineering reasoning rather than straightforward textbook recall
• Incorporate real-world design constraints, manufacturing considerations, tolerances, and engineering trade-offs
• Create problems reflecting genuine production-design responsibilities and decision-making

CAD & Production Design

• Develop scenarios involving CAD-based mechanical and product design
• Apply GD&T principles to drawings, assemblies, interfaces, and manufacturing requirements
• Incorporate tolerance stacks and dimensional analysis into complex engineering problems
• Address DFM considerations and production constraints
• Develop scenarios involving drawing creation, review, revision, and release

Expert Solution Development

• Write complete expert-level solutions for each authored engineering problem
• Clearly document engineering assumptions, calculations, design reasoning, and methodology
• Demonstrate how experienced design engineers evaluate competing design options
• Ensure solutions are technically rigorous, internally consistent, and independently verifiable
• Include appropriate consideration of manufacturability, tolerances, interfaces, and production requirements

AI Difficulty Validation

• Test authored problems against multiple frontier language models
• Evaluate whether current AI systems can correctly solve each engineering problem
• Identify reasoning errors, design mistakes, or incomplete technical approaches in model responses
• Refine problems where necessary to maintain an appropriately demanding level of difficulty
• Validate that each problem meaningfully tests advanced mechanical design expertise

Ideal Profile

Strong candidates may have:

• A PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Industrial Design, or a closely related discipline
• At least 5 years of hands-on professional or industry experience in production design roles
• Direct ownership of mechanical designs through development and production release
• Strong practical expertise in CAD and mechanical design
• Extensive experience with GD&T and tolerance stack analysis
• Hands-on knowledge of design for manufacturability
• Experience creating, reviewing, and releasing engineering drawings
• Strong technical writing and analytical communication skills

Educational Background

• A PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Industrial Design, or a closely related discipline is required
• Doctoral research should be complemented by substantial hands-on industry or production-design experience
• Strong practical experience owning real mechanical designs through manufacturing and release is particularly important for this engagement

Nice to Have

• CSWP or CSWE certification
• Experience designing products or mechanical systems within a major industrial, aerospace, automotive, technology, or manufacturing organisation
• Advanced CAD expertise using professional mechanical design platforms
• Experience performing complex tolerance analyses
• Strong knowledge of GD&T standards and drawing practices
• Background working closely with manufacturing, suppliers, quality, and production teams
• Experience resolving design-for-manufacturing issues during product development
• Prior experience authoring engineering assessments, technical problems, or training materials
• Familiarity with AI models or structured technical evaluation

Why This Opportunity

• Apply advanced mechanical design expertise to challenging AI research
• Create original engineering problems based on genuine production-design workflows
• Work with complex CAD, GD&T, tolerance, DFM, and drawing-release scenarios
• Use practical industry experience to test the reasoning capabilities of frontier AI systems
• Help identify technical limitations in current AI models
• Participate in flexible remote consulting work with competitive compensation

Contract Details

• Independent contractor role
• Fully remote with flexible scheduling
• Compensation of up to $80 per hour depending on expertise and project scope
• Hands-on production-design experience is required; candidates whose experience is limited to analysis or simulation without design ownership are unlikely to match the project requirements
• Work may include engineering problem authoring, expert solution development, technical validation, and AI model evaluation
• Weekly payments via Stripe or Wise
• Projects may be extended, shortened, or adjusted depending on scope and performance
• Work will not involve access to confidential or proprietary information from any employer, client, or institution

About the Platform

This opportunity is available through 24-MAG LLC. We connect experienced professionals with remote consulting opportunities across technical, evaluation, and project-based workstreams.

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