Mechanical Design Engineer, Actuators San Francisco, CA · On-site

Weave Robotics, Inc.; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Weave Robotics, Inc. in San Francisco, CA, is seeking a hands-on Mechanical Role focused on actuators and precision transmissions.

You will own the mechanical heart of our bimanual robot transmissions, structures, and thermal design to ensure strong, precise, quiet, and durable joints. You will integrate rotor/stator hardware with the structure, define life tests, and guide design margins from real fleet data.

Qualifications

• 3+ years designing actuators or precision transmissions with real products shipped.
• Strong transmission depth: gear trains, materials and manufacturing, DFM.
• Solid mechanical fundamentals: bearings and preload, shaft/housing design, tolerances, GD&T, fatigue, thermal design.
• CAD and analysis fluency: SolidWorks, FEA with judgement, hand calculations when practical.
• Test-driven habits: designed life tests and iterated from teardown results.

Responsibilities

• Transmission Design: select, design, and analyze torque density, stiffness, backlash, efficiency, and noise.
• Motor Integration: coordinate with mechanical and hardware teams on rotor/stator integration and encoder mounting.
• Actuator Package Design: ensure sealing, preload, dust ingress protection, and thermal/load paths.
• Life Testing: define and run life tests, derive load spectra, perform teardown analyses.
• Assembly & Test Design: plan assembly sequences and end-of-line testing for subassemblies.
• Performance Roadmap: drive actuator performance with controls, firmware and mechanical teams.

Skills

Actuator design

Transmission design

CAD and FEA

Life testing

Tolerance analysis

GD&T

Thermal design

Mechanical fundamentals

Tools

SolidWorks

FEA software

Job description

Weave was founded to build the robots we’d want to have in our own home. We believe the next generation of robotics will transform everyday life by enabling people to do more and to reclaim time to spend on what’s important.

We also believe robots are in a sense like any other product: to matter, they have to ship. Our robots are already operating in real homes and businesses, giving us the opportunity to rapidly improve from real-world experience. With a growing team, strong customer demand, and capital for expansion, we’re entering an exciting stage of growth—and we’re looking for people with exceptional talent and standards to help bring home robotics to millions of households.

The Role

Weave builds and deploys some of the first bimanual robots operating in customer homes. How capable, safe, quiet, and efficient our robots are has a floor, and that floor is set by their actuators. To push it, we design and build our own, on our own floor in San Francisco.

This role owns the mechanical heart of that program: the transmissions, structures, and thermal design that determine how strong, precise, quiet, and durable every joint in the robot is.

Responsibilities

Transmission Design: Planetary, harmonic and cycloidal stages. Selection, design and analysis for torque density, stiffness, backlash, efficiency and noise.

Motor Integration: Work with the rest of the Mechanical and Hardware team on rotor/stator integration, magnetic and thermal interactions with the structure and encoder mounting that holds calibration in years under heavy duty cycling.

Actuator Package Design: Structural design, bearings and preload, sealing against dust and general ingress, and thermal and load paths.

Life Testing: Define and run life testing: cycle tests, load spectra derived from real fleet data, teardown analysis, and design margins set by evidence.

Assembly & Test Design: These actuators are subassembled, calibrated, and tested in-house. Design for that reality with the rest of the mechanical team, from assembly sequence to end of line test.

Performance Roadmap: Drive the actuator performance envelope alongside controls, firmware and mechanical teams.

What You’ll Bring

3+ years designing actuators or precision transmissions (or equivalent research experience): Your work must have shipped in real products: robot joints, servo drives, e-mobility drivetrains, precision motion systems, or similar.

Transmission depth: gear train design, material and part selection, manufacturing methods and DFM.

Strong mechanical fundamentals: bearings and preload, shaft and housing design, tolerance stacks, GD&T, fatigue, and thermal design.

CAD and Analysis Fluency: SolidWorks-class CAD, FEA used with judgment, and hand calculations whenever practical.

Test-driven habits: You've designed life tests, instrumented them, and iterated a design based off of teardown results.

Nice to Have

Acoustic experience: experience making gearboxes quieter and intuition on where transmission noise comes from.

Experience with QDD actuation: and the transparency/backdrivability tradeoffs it buys.

EVT/DVT/PVT experience: taking an actuator or precision assembly into volume production.