Head of Mechanical Engineering, Manna Drone Delivery
Drone delivery service
Open for applications
Drone delivery service
101-200 employees
Open for applications
101-200 employees
Company mission
To improve the world by making lightning-fast suburban deliveries affordable, green and safe.
Role
Who you are
- The ideal candidate must have a track record of delivering complex safety-critical engineering projects from concept through to production and certification
- Technical mastery in CAD, simulation, DFM/DFA, thermal analysis, and multi-disciplinary system integration
- Team leadership & mentorship, developing engineers and fostering collaboration in high-stakes environments
- Project & program management, including planning, resourcing, and risk management for safety-critical systems
- Cross-functional leadership, aligning mechanical design with electrical, software, manufacturing, and regulatory requirements
- Supplier & manufacturing engagement, managing vendor relationships, ensuring scalability from prototype to production
- Decision-making & problem-solving in regulated environments, balancing performance, cost, certification requirements, and timelines
- Communication & stakeholder management, presenting technical concepts clearly to executives, regulators, and customers
- Innovation & continuous improvement, driving technical excellence while maintaining compliance and process rigor
What the job involves
- As the Head of Mechanical Engineering at Manna, you’ll report to the Director of Hardware Engineering and lead a team of talented engineers developing the next generation of our aircraft
- You’ll combine deep technical mastery across mechanical design, analysis, testing & product development disciplines, with strong leadership
- This is a hands-on, high-impact role where you’ll contribute both as a technical leader and as a mentor to junior engineers
- You’ll work across teams to deliver reliable, scalable, and elegant solutions to real-world challenges
- You'll play a critical role in scaling our mechanical engineering capabilities as we expand our commercial deployments
- Lead, mentor, and grow a team of mechanical engineers, fostering creativity, accountability, and technical excellence
- Cultivate a collaborative, values-driven culture that thrives on solving tough problems together
- Drive cross-functional coordination with electrical, software, and operations teams to resolve complex system integration challenges
- Establish clear DRI accountability and technical decision-making frameworks across mechanical subsystems
- Own mechanical architecture for next-generation aircraft systems, including composite airframes, propulsion integration, and cargo handling mechanisms
- Lead design solutions for extreme environment operations, including thermal management and environmental protection systems
- Drive DFM/DFA optimization for volume manufacturing while meeting EASA certification requirements
- Champion reliability engineering practices to achieve commercial aviation safety standards
- Bring a first principles approach to technical challenges
- Establish design standards, analysis methods, and testing protocols for safety-critical systems
- Lead root cause analysis and corrective action processes for field issues
- Drive adoption of modern CAD/PLM tools and simulation workflows
- Build knowledge base for lessons learned and design best practices
Our take
Manna Drone Delivery is a drone company that began operating hyper-locally in Ireland, making small deliveries in partnership with JustEat, Tescos, and a number of coffee and book shops. The service has proven popular to the tune of thousands of deliveries, and Manna is now expanding towards full rollout.
Efficient, low-emission, and high agility drones are expected to be the future of last-mile deliveries. Whilst there are some questions as to whether they’re a smart addition to built up areas, the consensus is that they will at least provide a welcome complement to other delivery vehicles. As such, getting in early with the correct technology could open up substantial doors for Manna.
The company is eyeing up US expansion, which may seem ambitious for the relatively small outfit. Bear in mind, however, that Alphabet’s suburban drone delivery subsidiary Wing is carrying out similar hyper-local testing in Logan Australia. This means there’s certainly no major player emerging yet in the US - and the prime candidates are doing precisely what Manna is to get their foot in the door.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
12% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Dec 2024
$32.2m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Apr 2021
$25m
SERIES A
Total funding: $62.4m
Company HQ
Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
Leadership
Bobby Healy
(Founder & CEO)Has spent a period as Non Executive Director at Chill Insurance and CarTrawler, at the latter of which he also worked as CTO and Board Director. Is also currently a Board Director at DEBRA Ireland.
Salary benchmarks
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