Robotics Engineer (Mechanical)

Company: Confidential - Venture-backed clean-energy hardware startup
Location: San Francisco, CA (in office 5 days per week, with field work in austere desert conditions)
Compensation: $150,000 - $250,000 + competitive equity
Employment Type: Full-time
Visa Sponsorship: Visa transfers (OPT, H-1B transfer)

About the Company

A venture-backed company building off-grid, renewable power plants for data centers, vertically integrating hardware, power electronics and operations to bypass multi-year grid-connection delays.

The Role

Our client is hiring a Robotics Engineer (Mechanical, 7-10+ years) to own the mechanical architecture of an autonomous field robot that will change how utility-scale solar is built. You will join a small, high-agency team on a ground-up hardware program with founding-level ownership, taking the machine from concept to prototype to production fleet by designing, building, breaking and rebuilding it in the field.

What You Will Do

• Own the full mechanical architecture: chassis, mast, tool head, rebar handling, feed system, drivetrain and locomotion for rough desert terrain.
• Design, prototype and iterate rapidly, machining parts, working with fab shops and testing hardware in the dirt.
• Specify and integrate actuators, sensors and power distribution with the electrical/mechatronics engineer.
• Perform structural and dynamic analysis, including reaction loads, vibration, fatigue and tip-over stability.
• Take the design toward a small production fleet with a focus on DFM, reliability and field serviceability.

What You Bring

• 7-10+ years of mechanical engineering on robotics or heavy mobile machinery
• End-to-end ownership of a machine from concept to production
• Hands-on prototyping and fabrication experience
• Structural and dynamic analysis skills (FEA)
• Comfort working in the field in austere conditions
• Ability to work in the San Francisco office 5 days a week

Tech Stack

SolidWorks, CAD, FEA, GD&T, hydraulics, electric actuators, motor sizing and selection, rapid prototyping, DFM