Hardware Product Designer

Menlo Research; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Menlo Research in San Francisco is seeking a Hardware Product Designer to own the physical form of Asimov. You will shape how the robot looks, feels, and reads to people around it, translating that vision into production-ready enclosures, covers, and structural aesthetics.

This is design that ships to real hardware, not renders. You will prototype fast, iterate with mechanical and electrical teams, and drive manufacturing decisions to ensure buildability and field durability.

Qualifications

• A strong portfolio of shipped physical products, ideally complex electromechanical hardware.
• Deep industrial design fundamentals: form, proportion, ergonomics, and CMF.
• Fluency in CAD and surfacing, plus real DFM and DFA experience.
• Comfort moving from sketch to prototype to production without needing a large team around you.
• A bias for building, testing on hardware, and iterating quickly.
• Judgment about when to obsess over a detail and when to ship.

Responsibilities

• Own industrial design for Asimov, from concept and form language to production-ready enclosures, covers, and structural aesthetics
• Turn mechanical and electrical constraints into clean, intentional physical design without hiding the engineering
• Drive CMF decisions across the platform: color, material, finish, texture, and how they hold up in the field
• Prototype fast in foam, print, and machined parts, then iterate on real robots
• Work shoulder to shoulder with mechanical, electrical, and manufacturing to keep designs buildable and repeatable
• Own design for manufacturing and assembly, including tolerances, fastening, serviceability, and part count
• Design the human-facing details: grips, handles, access panels, indicators, and anything a person touches or reads

Skills

Industrial design

CAD

DFM

Prototype

Team collaboration

Tools

CAD software

Job description

About Menlo

Menlo Research is an Applied R&D lab building Asimov, an open-source humanoid robot platform, and the full software stack that powers it. Our mission is to make humanoid labor economically viable, turning software into physical labor at scale. We build across the full stack: hardware architecture, locomotion, autonomy, simulation, and infrastructure. We move fast, ship to real robots, and open-source everything we can. If you want your work to matter beyond a paper or a demo, this is the place.

About Menlo

Menlo Research is an Applied R&D lab building Asimov, an open-source humanoid robot platform, and the full software stack that powers it. Our mission is to make humanoid labor economically viable, turning software into physical labor at scale. We build across the full stack: hardware architecture, locomotion, autonomy, simulation, and infrastructure. We move fast, ship to real robots, and open-source everything we can. If you want your work to matter beyond a paper or a demo, this is the place.

The Role

We are looking for a Hardware Product Designer to own the physical form of Asimov. You will shape how the robot looks, feels, and reads to the people around it, and translate that vision into parts that manufacture, assemble, and survive the real world. This is design that ships to real hardware, not renders.

What You'll Do

• Own industrial design for Asimov, from concept and form language to production-ready enclosures, covers, and structural aesthetics


• Turn mechanical and electrical constraints into clean, intentional physical design without hiding the engineering


• Drive CMF decisions across the platform: color, material, finish, texture, and how they hold up in the field


• Prototype fast in foam, print, and machined parts, then iterate on real robots


• Work shoulder to shoulder with mechanical, electrical, and manufacturing to keep designs buildable and repeatable


• Own design for manufacturing and assembly, including tolerances, fastening, serviceability, and part count


• Design the human-facing details: grips, handles, access panels, indicators, and anything a person touches or reads

What We Look For

• A strong portfolio of shipped physical products, ideally complex electromechanical hardware


• Deep industrial design fundamentals: form, proportion, ergonomics, and CMF


• Fluency in CAD and surfacing, plus real DFM and DFA experience


• Comfort moving from sketch to prototype to production without needing a large team around you


• A bias for building, testing on hardware, and iterating quickly


• Judgment about when to obsess over a detail and when to ship

Nice to Have

• Robotics, consumer electronics, automotive, or wearables background


• Experience taking a product from zero to first production run


• Hands-on shop skills: 3D printing, machining, moldmaking, finishing


• Feel for how design and brand reinforce each other

Why Join Menlo

You will define what a humanoid robot looks like at the moment the category is being written. Your work ships to real machines, in the real world, fast. If you want your design to live in hardware people actually use rather than a slide, this is the place.

A Note on AI

You don't need deep AI expertise for every role, but we do expect everyone at Menlo to be intellectually curious, drawn to tinkering and discovery, and excited to use AI as a real collaborator in their work. For some roles, AI fluency is a core requirement. When that's the case, we'll say so explicitly in the qualifications. People who thrive here don't treat AI as a novelty. They use it to think better, and make their work easier for others to build on.

Equal Opportunity and Accommodations

We hire talented people from a wide range of backgrounds. If you're excited about a role but don't meet every bullet, we still encourage you to apply. Menlo Research is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of any legally protected characteristic. Menlo provides reasonable accommodations during the application process. If you need one, please let your recruiter know.