Mechanical Forward Deployed Engineer - Cincinnati

About CoLab

At CoLab, we help mechanical engineering teams bring life-changing products to market years sooner.

We build AI for engineers designing cars, medical devices, and jet engines. Products this complex aren't sketched and sent to production. Teams spend months on iterations, reviews, and tests, predicting how every part performs before anything is built. CoLab is where those reviews happen, and we capture the rationale behind every change. Other tools show what changed between versions. Only CoLab knows why. That's how our AI helps manufacturers like Bobcat, Triumph Motorcycles, and GE Appliances make better decisions, eliminate rework cycles, and get to market faster.

Proudly based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, CoLab started with one customer in 2018. Since then we’ve raised a $72M Series C, been named the 57th fastest growing company in North America by Deloitte (Fast 500™), signed multi-year AI partnerships with companies like Bombardier, and grown to a team of 250+.

About the Role

This is a high-impact role that helps define how CoLab delivers technical value to its most strategic customers in Aerospace and Defence. CoLab is a category-creating product, which means adoption isn't just a rollout. It's a change in how the organization works.

In this role, you'd act as a trusted advisor, leveraging people, process, and technology to help teams rethink how they manage feedback, data, and decision-making across design and PLM. That means getting deep into customer workflows, testing new ways of working, and building repeatable methods the rest of the team can scale.

You'll work alongside a Customer Success Manager, and use what you learn on the front line to help shape product direction. This role isn't about selling or pitching. It's about deeply understanding engineering problems and solving them alongside the customer.

We are looking for a candidate in Cincinatti to work regularly on-site with a local CoLab customer.

Our Ideal Candidate

You’re a mechanical engineer by trade and have worked as a designer in an A&D company. You also understand the full product development life cycle: how design, manufacturing, quality, and engineering leadership depend on each other, and where collaboration breaks down. You can coach those teams toward working together better.

You know how to improve that life cycle with technology. Maybe you’ve championed internal tools or created automation or scripts.

You also know a process that makes sense on paper won’t get adopted on its own. You can meet people where they are, including the stakeholders who don’t want to change.

You don’t need to be the loudest voice in the room, but you can run a sprint and lead a cross-functional project. If the average person might find this job too undefined or complex, that probably excites you.

Job Responsibilities

Qualifications

Must-haves:

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Travel Expectations

While this is a fully remote role, travel is a consistent part of the job. There are two primary types of travel you can expect:

Extra Details

Equity Note

Frequently cited statistics show that people who identify with historically marginalized groups are likely to apply to jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. We encourage you to help us break that statistic and apply even if you don't meet every single qualification. Your potential is what matters most to us.