Mechanical Design Engineer (Robotics)

Title: Mechanical Design Engineer (Robotics), Early Hardware Team

Location: San Francisco, CA (on site, 6 days a week)

Salary: $150K–$250K+ base plus meaningful equity

Want to be one of the first mechanical engineers at a well-funded robotics startup building robots for industrial work?

This company builds bi-manual robots that do real industrial labour, and owns the full stack: hardware, ML and deployment. The team is small, about 20 people, with engineers from top AI and tech companies. They’re hiring an early member of the hardware team to own the physical layer everything else runs on.

What you’ll do

• Design, prototype and iterate on end-effectors, grippers, fixtures and full robot assemblies
• Build custom hardware fast, often in days to weeks: teleoperation leader arms, data collection rigs, custom assemblies
• Own actuator design, integration and FEA for arms and end-effectors handling industrial loads
• Move between quick builds that unblock the ML team and longer projects like custom arms and actuators
• Work directly with ML, electrical and deployment engineers to turn manipulation problems into working hardware

What they’re looking for

• 0 to 4 years of hands-on mechanical engineering in robotics, actuators or hardware products. Internships count
• Strong CAD (SolidWorks, Onshape or Fusion) plus real fabrication: machining, 3D printing, building things yourself
• A maker mindset: personal projects, FSAE, Baja, motorsports, robotics or build clubs, machine shop experience
• Comfort with ambiguity, high ownership and switching between short projects
• A mechanical engineering degree is preferred. A strong portfolio matters more

Nice to have

• Internships or experience at robotics, autonomy, aerospace or hardware startups
• DFM across machining, sheet metal, injection moulding and additive

Why join

• Ground floor of a physical AI company with serious funding
• Real ownership: you design it, build it and see it deployed
• OPT and H1B transfers supported

To apply: include a link to your portfolio or project work. Applications without one won’t be reviewed.