Mechanical Design Engineer, Wearables

Mind Robotics Inc.; Palo Alto, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Mind Robotics Inc. in Palo Alto is seeking a hands-on Senior Mechanical Engineer to own the wearable platform's mechanical architecture from end to end.

You will design enclosures, packaging for cameras and sensors, set budgets, and mentor the mechanical bench while building prototypes and running tests on real users. You will be deeply involved in trade-off decisions, tooling strategy, and defining vendor expectations, with a focus on robust, ergonomic wearables.

Qualifications

• Exceptional mechanical intuition enabling intuitive design decisions.
• Experience owning mechanical architecture of shipped wearables end to end.
• Ability to package cameras, sensors, compute, and batteries in compact enclosures.
• Hands-on injection molding and polymer selection expertise.
• Fluency with soft goods and textiles for ergonomic interfaces.
• Proficiency in CAD tools (SolidWorks, Catia, NX).
• Comfort with ambiguity and fast-paced hardware development.

Responsibilities

• Own the mechanical architecture of Mind's wearable data platform across head-worn and body-worn devices.
• Set mechanical requirements for optics, electrical, and compute teams and resolve budget tradeoffs.
• Decide which mechanical problems to tackle in each device generation and decline others.
• Own build and tooling strategy across printing, machining, molding and sourcing partners.
• Set design review, tolerance analysis, materials qualifications, and vendor expectations.
• Stay hands-on: build, test, and run tolerance, structural, drop, and thermal analyses.
• Grow the mechanical bench through design reviews, mentorship, and hiring.

Skills

Mechanical intuition

Wearable device architecture

Enclosure packaging

Injection molding

Polymer selection

Soft goods

CAD tools (SolidWorks/Catia/NX)

Ambiguity tolerance

Job description

About Mind:

Mind Robotics is building Physical AI for real-world industrial deployment, starting with the factory floor. We believe the hardest problems in AI are solved when researchers and engineers are hands-on with the physical world every day - and we're looking for people who are passionate about robotics, value ownership, and are excited to tackle difficult problems. Join us if you want to move beyond digital intelligence and put intelligence into motion.

Responsibilities

• Own the mechanical architecture of Mind's wearable data collection platform across both head-worn and body-worn devices, including what carries forward between generations and what gets rebuilt.

• Set the mechanical requirements the optics, electrical, and compute teams design against: volume and keep-out budgets, alignment and stiffness targets, thermal limits, and mass allocation. Own the tradeoffs when those budgets conflict, and decide which ones give.

• Decide which mechanical problems each device generation takes on and which it deliberately does not, and hold that line when the program pushes back.

• Own build and tooling strategy for the platform: what is printed, machined, molded, or bought; when tooling gets committed; and which molders, soft goods vendors, and CMs Mind builds a long-term relationship with.

• Set the mechanical standards other hardware teams work to: design review, tolerance analysis practice, materials and skin-contact qualification, and DFM expectations for vendors.

• Stay hands-on. Build, test, and break prototypes on real users, and personally run the tolerance, structural, drop, and thermal analyses that decide the architecture.

• Grow the mechanical bench through design review, mentorship on the wearable stack, and hiring.

Qualifications

• Exceptional mechanical intuition. You understand how forces, materials, and mechanisms behave instinctively.

• You have owned the mechanical architecture of a shipped wearable, head-worn, or handheld consumer device end to end, and can describe both the tradeoffs you chose and the ones you refused.

• Depth packaging cameras, sensors, compute, and batteries into space-constrained enclosures with tight tolerance and alignment requirements, with a track record of setting those budgets rather than working inside someone else's.

• Deep hands-on knowledge of injection molding and polymer selection, from part design through tooling and T1 to production, including judgment on when to commit tooling.

• Working fluency in soft goods and textiles: straps, padding, fabric-to-rigid interfaces, and skin-contact ergonomics. You know when this needs a specialist and can direct one.

• High proficiency in SolidWorks, Catia, NX, or similar CAD tools, including surfacing.

• Comfortable with ambiguity, moves fast, and curious about how the whole system works.