Senior Actuator Engineer (Hands Team)

Socket.dev; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Rhoda AI in Mountain View, CA is seeking an engineer to design actuation for the hand, delivering human-hand dexterity through compact motor-gearbox units. You will own the design from concept through production, focusing on planetary geartrains and high-density packaging.

You will size motors based on torque, speed, power, and efficiency, run bench and dyno tests, and collaborate with structures and electrical teams on integration and thermal paths.

Qualifications

• Experience shipping planetary gearboxes.
• Ability to size motors for torque, speed and efficiency.
• Experience miniaturizing geartrains for compact packaging.

Responsibilities

• Design compact motor-gearbox actuator units for the hand's fingers and wrist, from concept through production
• Architect miniaturized geartrains — especially planetary — that hit torque, backlash, and packaging targets at finger scale
• Size and select motors against torque, speed, power-draw, thermal, and efficiency requirements
• Build and run bench and dyno tests to characterize actuator performance, efficiency, and durability
• Partner with the structures engineer on packaging and thermal paths, and with the electrical engineer on drive and sensing integration

Skills

Gearbox design

Planetary gears

Motor sizing

Torque analysis

Thermal analysis

Tools

Dyno testing

Bench testing

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.

You will design the actuation at the heart of the hand: compact, efficient motor-and-gearbox units that must deliver human-hand dexterity in a human-hand package. Your actuators define what the entire system can do.

What You'll Do

• Design compact motor-gearbox actuator units for the hand's fingers and wrist, from concept through production
• Architect miniaturized geartrains — especially planetary — that hit torque, backlash, and packaging targets at finger scale
• Size and select motors against torque, speed, power-draw, thermal, and efficiency requirementsBuild and run bench and dyno tests to characterize actuator performance, efficiency, and durability
• Partner with the structures engineer on packaging and thermal paths, and with the electrical engineer on drive and sensing integration

What You Bring

• Track record of designing and shipping gearboxes, especially planetary gearboxes
• Experience miniaturizing geartrains for tightly packaged, weight- and volume-constrained applications
• Strong command of motor sizing and selection, including power draw, torque density, and efficiency analysis

Nice to Have

• Gear design experience — tooth profiles, materials, and manufacturing methods
• Experience with tendon- or linkage-driven finger actuation
• Familiarity with backdrivability and transparency requirements for teleoperation