Mechanical Design Engineer, Structures & Mechanisms
$145,000–$225,000 year
On-siteSouth San Francisco, California, United States
Job Summary
Own end-to-end delivery of structural or mechanical subsystems from requirements through design, build, test, and production sustainment. Produce and defend system-level trade studies, tolerance stacks, load paths, and failure modes for safety-critical hardware. Create CAD assemblies, detailed drawings, GD&T, and manufacturing documentation while leading supplier selection, qualification, and handoff to reduce NPI cycle time and scrap rates. Cross-functionally partner with Systems, Software, Production, and Field Ops to align requirements, manage trade-offs, and eliminate deployment blockers. Translate prototypes into scalable designs meeting target cost, cycle time, and inspection rates for medium-volume production.
Required Qualifications
- Proven ownership of high performance or low margin mechanical or electromechanical hardware validation through development, qualification, production ramp, and field deployment
- First principles approach to engineering and a Test-first mindset
- Experience planning and executing environmental, vibration, fatigue, and thermal verification
- Ability to design test fixtures and interpret data
- Deep hands-on experience designing carbon composite structures, injection moulded plastics, metallic structures, and/or servo-actuated mechanisms
- Strong mechanical fundamentals
- Experience working with suppliers when developing hardware and processes
- Demonstrated supplier/DFM experience and track record reducing NPI cycles, scrap, or supplier defects
- Clear written and verbal technical communication
- Ability to present tradeoffs and accept/ reject risk decisions to stakeholders
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