Lead Mechanical Engineer - High-DoF Robotics Systems

Amazon; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Amazon’s Frontier AI & Robotics team seeks a Member of Technical Staff - Mechanical Engineer to own the mechanical architecture of a high-DoF robotic platform from concept to production. Lead design, testing, and rapid iteration across subsystems while coordinating with electrical, firmware, controls, and AI researchers to push boundaries in embodied intelligence.

You will guide actuator selection, thermal management, sensor integration, and DFM/ DFA practices to enable scalable, robust hardware

Qualifications

• Experience developing functional specs, test plans and verification procedures.
• Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or equivalent.
• 6–10+ years designing mechanical systems for robotics or complex electromechanical products.
• Proficiency in 3D CAD (SolidWorks/OnShape).
• Hands-on prototype building, hardware integration, and troubleshooting.
• Understanding of actuator and motor selection for torque, speed, and thermal performance.
• Experience with wire/cable harness design and routing.
• Familiarity with integrating sensing and compute into mechanical designs.
• Experience with structural analysis tools (FEA/Ansys), thermal analysis, and material selection.
• Knowledge of DFM/DFA principles and exposure to volume production (100+ units).

Responsibilities

• Lead mechanical design of robotic subsystems and full platforms for a research environment.
• Own kinematic, dynamic, and structural analyses to guide design of high-DoF robots.
• Specify and integrate actuators and motors for high-torque density applications.
• Drive rapid prototyping cycles from concept sketches through functional hardware.
• Collaborate with AI research to establish simulation pipelines for design exploration.
• Contribute to thermal management strategies for motors, sensors, and compute hardware.
• Integrate sensors (lidar, stereo cameras, IMUs, tactile sensors) and compute modules.
• Design and route cabling and wire harnesses for reliability and thermal integrity.
• Prototype and test mechanical systems; support hands-on builds and field testing.
• Apply DFA/DFM to scale prototypes to 10s–100s of units.
• Collaborate with electrical, controls, perception, and research teams to meet goals.

Skills

Systems thinking

Cross-functional collaboration

3D CAD

Prototyping

Actuator/motor selection

Thermal management

Cable harness design

Sensing integration

DFM/ DFA

Structural analysis

Team leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or equivalent

Master's degree in mechanical/mechatronics engineering or equivalent

Tools

SolidWorks

OnShape

FEA/Ansys

Job description

Amazon’s Frontier AI & Robotics team seeks a Member of Technical Staff - Mechanical Engineer to own the mechanical architecture of a high-DoF robotic platform from concept to production. Lead design, testing, and rapid iteration across subsystems while coordinating with electrical, firmware, controls, and AI researchers to push boundaries in embodied intelligence.

You will guide actuator selection, thermal management, sensor integration, and DFM/ DFA practices to enable scalable, robust hardware