We study the resistive state of a mesoscopic superconducting strip with an engineered defect at the center. The defect is another superconductor with a different critical temperature. Several geometrical shapes of the defect are studied. The strip is considered under a transport electrical current, Ja, and at zero external applied magnetic field. The current is applied through a metallic contact, and the defect is simulated with the phenomenological parameter α(T ) = α0(T − Tc(r)) in the Ginzburg-Landau free energy density. Here Tc(r) = Tc,0 + δT (r), where δT (r) < 0 (δT (r) > 0) corresponds to a domain of lower (higher) critical temperature. It is shown that the critical current density for the I-V characteristic curve, Jc1, at which the first vortex-antivortex (V-Av) pair nucleates in the sample, as well as its dynamics, strongly depend on the critical temperature, the position, and the geometry of the defect.