Mechanical Design Structures Engineer

Rhoda AI; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Rhoda AI is seeking a Structures Engineer to shape the hand architecture, ensuring robust, precise, and manufacturable designs for wearable robotics. You will own the design from concept through production, integrating thermal paths with dense actuator packages to meet real-world use cases.

The role emphasizes light-weight, body-safe structures and excellent tolerance for impact and abuse, with a focus on precision where it matters for reliable grasping.

Qualifications

• DFM for volume production including die-cast and injection-molded parts.
• Thermal design experience, integrating heat paths with actuators in dense packages.
• Background in linkage, pivot, and small-mechanism design.
• Proven ability to design robust systems that tolerate impact and sustained abuse.
• Ability to design for precision where it matters for fine motor control and reliable grasping.
• Nice-to-have: experience with wearable or body-worn product structures.
• Nice-to-have: familiarity with GD&T and tolerance-stack analysis for small mechanisms.

Responsibilities

• Design the structural architecture of the hand — palm, fingers, linkages, and pivots.
• Own design-for-manufacturing of structural parts, from prototype through production
• Integrate thermal paths with the actuation system so dense actuator packages stay within limits
• Engineer for robustness to tolerate impacts, drops, and sustained real-world abuse
• Hold the precision required for fine motor control and repeatable grasping
• Design lightweight, body-safe structures for wearable devices

Skills

DFM for volume production

Thermal design

Linkage/pivot/small-mechanism design

Robust systems design

Precision design

Wearable product structures

GD&T and tolerance-stack analysis

Job description

At Rhoda AI, we’re building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. We own the full robotics stack from high-performance hardware and robot systems to the infrastructure and state-of-the-art foundation world models that control our robots. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling long-tail edge cases, made possible by our cutting edge research and end-to-end system design. We've raised over $450M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.

Structures Engineer

You will design the structural skeleton of the hand system — the palms, fingers, linkages, and housings that must survive real-world abuse while holding the precision that fine manipulation demands.

What You’ll Do

• Design the structural architecture of the hand — palm, fingers, linkages, and pivots

• Own design-for-manufacturing of structural parts, including die-cast and injection-molded components, from prototype through production

• Integrate thermal paths with the actuation system so dense actuator packages stay within limits

• Engineer for robustness: the hand must tolerate impacts, drops, and sustained real-world abuse

• Hold the precision required for fine motor control and repeatable grasping

• Design lightweight, body-safe structures for wearable devices

What You Bring

• Experience with die-cast and injection-mold part design, including DFM for volume production

• Thermal design experience, especially integrating heat paths with actuators in dense packages

• Strong background in linkage, pivot, and small-mechanism design

• Proven ability to design robust systems that tolerate impact and sustained abuse

• Ability to design for precision where it matters, enabling fine motor control and reliable grasping

Nice to Have

• Experience with wearable or body-worn product structures

• Familiarity with GD&T and tolerance-stack analysis for small mechanisms