Company Description:
Stratum Defense Technology LLP is an Indian defence technology company building autonomous systems for the Indian armed forces. We are not a software consultancy, not a drone company pivoting to maritime, and not a proposal exercise. We are building hardware. Complex, safety-critical, sovereign hardware that India does not yet have.
Our flagship programme is Project MAKARA, India's first indigenous Multi-Mission Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (AUV). MAKARA is designed to give the Indian Navy persistent covert underwater surveillance, distributed acoustic sensor network deployment, anti-submarine warfare coordination, and precision undersea strike capability, all from a single autonomous platform that carries no foreign weapon dependency.
We are headquartered in New Delhi.
Role Description
You will own the mechanical and structural design of MAKARA, India's first indigenous Multi-Mission Autonomous Undersea Vehicle. You take validated hydrodynamic analysis and turn it into a real, manufacturable, pressure-safe vehicle. You are the person who owns the pressure boundary: the hull that has to survive depth, launch, and recovery, and every mechanical system inside it.
You work directly downstream of the hydrodynamics and CFD lead, who defines the external form, and upstream of the design and drafting engineer, who produces the manufacturing packages. You own the engineering decisions between those two: structural sizing, material selection, pressure-boundary integrity, mechanical layout, and the design that goes to our co-fabrication partners. This is a design-authority role, not a drafting role. You will stand behind your structural margins in a design review with DRDO scientists.
What you will do
- Own the pressure hull design: structural sizing against collapse and buckling, material selection, wall and stiffening strategy, and the safety case for a vehicle that operates where it cannot be casually recovered
- Design the mechanical architecture: pressure boundary, penetrations and closures, propulsor housing, bulkheads, internal structural layout, and mounting for payload and systems
- Own the buoyancy and trim budget in coordination with systems, treating the hull as a coupled structural and buoyancy problem, not a standalone part
- Translate hydrodynamic form and CFD load inputs from the hydrodynamics lead into a structurally sound, manufacturable design
- Define the structural validation approach: analysis, proof-pressure strategy, and correlation with test, before the vehicle ever goes to depth
- Direct the design and drafting engineer on CAD, detailing, tolerancing, and manufacturing packages to our co-fabrication partners
- Own the mechanical and structural sections of iDEX ADITI 4 and DISC 14 technical submissions and DIO milestone evidence
- Coordinate with the hydrodynamics lead on hull geometry finalisation and with systems engineering on mechanical requirements
Qualifications
Essential:
- Bachelors or Masters in Mechanical, Naval Architecture, Ocean, or Aerospace Engineering
- Demonstrated ownership of pressure-critical or structural design, taking a structure from requirement and analysis through to a manufacturable, validated design
- Structural design against pressure loading: understands the difference between strength-driven and stability-driven failure, and can reason about collapse and buckling, not only yield
- Material selection for structural and marine or corrosive environments
- Ability to translate analysis and simulation inputs into design decisions and defend structural margins in review
- Strong CAD and the ability to direct detailing and manufacturing-package generation
Beneficial:
- Pressure vessel design to a formal code, or structural validation by Finite Element Analysis
- Autonomous underwater vehicle, remotely operated vehicle, submarine, or torpedo mechanical and structural experience
- Buoyancy and trim budgeting for an underwater or marine vehicle
- Defence qualification exposure: documented safety case, traceability, design to written standard
- NSTL, IIT Madras Ocean Engineering, Cochin University, Andhra University Ship Technology, or DRDO and Indian Navy shipbuilding background
- Co-fabrication and vendor coordination experience
Pay: ₹284,451.77 - ₹1,500,000.00 per year
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Delhi, Delhi (Delhi): Reliably commute or planning to relocate before starting work (Preferred)
Application Question(s):
- Have you personally owned the structural or mechanical design of a pressure-critical component or vehicle, from requirement through to a manufacturable design?
(Yes/No)
- Do you understand structural design against external pressure, including collapse and buckling, not only yield or stress limits?
(Yes/No)
- How many years of hands-on mechanical or structural design experience do you have? (Number)
- What is your experience with pressure vessel design, buoyancy and trim, or Finite Element Analysis validation?
Work Location: In person
