Mechanical Engineering Lead

moss robotics; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

moss.inc is seeking a Mechanical Engineering Lead in a full-time role on a seven-person team. You will own mechanical architecture, drive production of the sensor kit, and guide enclosure systems for thermal, weather, and vibration resilience, collaborating with electrical and perception engineers.

You’ll mentor engineers and interns, coordinate with manufacturers, and travel to customer sites and partners as needed to validate designs and ensure robust field performance.

Qualifications

• Shipped at least one hardware product from concept to production and can explain what broke and how you fixed it
• Proven thermal design projects (cooling electronics inside sealed enclosures, heat sinking and heat paths)
• Proven vibration and shock projects (mounting and isolation, fatigue, modal analysis)
• Designed sealed enclosures for outdoor use (IP rating, gaskets and seals)
• Deep CAD and FEA experience on real products
• Strong understanding of structural analysis and failure modes of complex mechanical systems
• Experience designing for production processes (machining, sheet metal, injection molding)
• Solid understanding of GD&T and tolerance analysis
• Comfortable making first-principles engineering trade-offs
• Experience integrating sensors, compute, and power systems
• Experience working with manufacturers (DFM reviews, contract manufacturers, sourcing, assembly and test)
• Comfortable building, assembling, and debugging physical hardware
• Experience leading other engineers or mentoring interns
• Able to travel to customer sites and manufacturing partners

Responsibilities

• Own mechanical architecture decisions, material selection, and detailed design for every moss product
• Take the current sensor kit through production: sourcing, DFM, assembly, failure analysis, and field repairs
• Design the next revision of the sensor kit and bring it to production
• Develop enclosure systems for thermal management, vibration resistance, and weather protection
• Validate hardware against IP, vibration, thermal, and fatigue failures, and fix what fails
• Perform tolerance analysis and DFM reviews with manufacturing partners
• Own prototype builds and field-test validation with customers
• Work with perception, robotics, and electrical engineers on how the full system fits together
• Own relationships with manufacturing partners and component suppliers, in the US and overseas
• Lead design reviews internally and externally with suppliers and partners
• Mentor interns and future mechanical engineers

Skills

Hardware product development

Thermal design

Vibration analysis

Sealed enclosures

CAD/FEA

Structural analysis

Production design

GD&T

Trade-offs

Sensor integration

Supplier management

Travel to sites

Job description

About Us

At moss.inc, we are making the physical world searchable. Our sensor kits mount to vehicles our customers already drive, and turn every drive into a measured 3D record of their site, across agriculture, construction, and energy. Our AI models then parse through those 3D maps and decipher important information for each of our customers. We started with tree farms, where a single field holds millions of plants no human has ever fully inventoried.

We're a small team of practical engineers with a long-term vision. We focus on real, messy, on-the-ground problems today, while working toward a future where AI agents understand the physical world.

If our mission aligns with how you work and think, we'd love to learn more about you.

The Role

Join us as our Mechanical Engineering Lead, a full-time role on a team of seven.

Our current product is a sensor kit that combines LiDARs, cameras, GPS, and IMUs with onboard compute in one sealed enclosure. It mounts on customer vehicles, runs in the field every day, and ships to paying customers worldwide. We move fast by iterating it rapidly, and our first project is its next revision. As we expand, we will build many new products and start prototyping for brand new industries. You will lead the mechanical work on all of them.

Here, you will take each design through the full cycle: concept CAD, rapid prototyping, FEA, DFM iteration, supplier coordination, assembly, and field validation with customers. You will own the technical direction of mechanical engineering at moss, and you will mentor the interns and full-time engineers who work alongside you.

Minimum Requirements

• Shipped at least one hardware product from concept to production, and can explain what broke along the way and how you fixed it

• Proven thermal design projects (cooling electronics inside sealed enclosures, heat sinking and heat paths, thermal modeling checked against real measurements)

• Proven vibration and shock projects (mounting and isolation, fatigue, modal analysis checked against real measurements)

• Designed sealed enclosures for outdoor use (IP rating, gaskets and seals, thermal management, vibration and shock)

• Deep CAD and FEA experience, with structural, thermal, and vibration analysis on real products

• Strong understanding of structural analysis and failure modes of complex mechanical systems

• Experience designing for production processes (machining, sheet metal, injection molding, castings) and choosing between them

• Solid understanding of GD&T and tolerance analysis

• Comfortable making first-principles engineering trade-offs, even with partial information

• Experience integrating sensors, compute, and power systems into physical assemblies, working alongside electrical engineers

• Experience working with manufacturers (DFM reviews, contract manufacturers, sourcing, production assembly and test)

• Comfortable building, assembling, and debugging physical hardware

• Experience leading other engineers or mentoring interns

• Able to travel to customer sites and manufacturing partners

What You'll Do

• Own mechanical architecture decisions, material selection, and detailed design for every moss product

• Take the current sensor kit through production: sourcing, DFM, assembly, failure analysis, and field repairs

• Design the next revision of the sensor kit and bring it to production

• Develop enclosure systems for thermal management, vibration resistance, and weather protection

• Validate hardware against IP, vibration, thermal, and fatigue failures, and fix what fails

• Perform tolerance analysis and DFM reviews with manufacturing partners

• Own prototype builds and field-test validation with customers

• Work with perception, robotics, and electrical engineers on how the full system fits together

• Own relationships with manufacturing partners and component suppliers, in the US and overseas

• Lead design reviews internally and externally with suppliers and partners

• Mentor interns and future mechanical engineers