Sr. Product Design Engineer

Socket.dev; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 175,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Significant equity

Health, dental, vision and 401(k)

Daily catered meals

Office next to Oracle Park

Job summary

Ironsite in the San Francisco Bay Area is hiring a Senior Product Design Engineer to own the mechanical design and product architecture of wearables that house cameras and sensors.

You will work across hardware teams from concept to volume production, ensuring ruggedness, manufacturability, and a great worker experience, while partnering with contract manufacturers on DFM and manufacturing.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on experience designing and shipping physical products, especially wearables or rugged hardware.
• Experience designing camera integration and optical alignment for production.
• Experience with mass production and DFM with contract manufacturers.

Responsibilities

• Own mechanical design end-to-end for wearable hardware from concept through volume production.
• Design enclosures, mechanisms, mounts, and mounts for wearable devices housing cameras and sensors.
• Ensure sealing, thermal management, and ruggedization suitable for harsh job-site use.
• Collaborate with electrical/firmware teams and contract manufacturers across the full product lifecycle.

Skills

Wearable design

Camera integration

Optical alignment

Rugged hardware

DFM & production

Mass production

Cross-functional

Parametric CAD

Contract manufacturers

Tolerance analysis

Education

Mechanical Engineering

Tools

Onshape

SOLIDWORKS

Siemens NX

Creo

Job description

About Ironsite

Ironsite is building the intelligence layer for the physical world. We design our own wearable hardware, deploy it alongside craft workers, and transform a shift's footage into a next-morning report. Our internal team and purpose-built models label the data overnight and deliver actionable insights to superintendents by 5 AM.

We are accelerating the speed, efficiency, and predictability of construction, especially for complex, mission-critical infrastructure projects, including data centers, LNG facilities, sports stadiums, hospitals, and other large-scale developments, by training AI models on egocentric construction footage and labor productivity data. We are built with a pro-worker philosophy at our core: we believe technology should empower the workforce, not replace it. We're working to give craft workers and project leaders better visibility into what's happening on-site, while creating a system where the reality of construction and the chaos of each day is finally available to the people running the project.

Ironsite is deployed across several of the largest active construction projects in the country. To date, we've captured more than 100,000 hours of construction footage across seven states, now process thousands of hours of site activity every day, and maintain a worker opt-out rate below two percent. This is enabled by a workforce-first architecture that anonymizes devices, captures no audio, and never releases raw video.

Ironsite is backed by leading investors (8VC, South Park Commons, Saga Ventures) and prominent operators across technology and construction, including Eric Schmidt, Jeff Dean, Jeff Rothschild, Mark Leslie, Scott Wu, Eric Glyman, Karim Atiyeh, Russell Kaplan, and others, alongside over a dozen construction industry operators who have joined us as partners in building this.

Longer term, we believe Ironsite is the foundation for what construction becomes in the next decade. We think the systems we're building are the operating system for how the physical world gets built, and will unlock a fundamentally different way of respect for our workforce. One where craft workers are more valued, more visible, and better paid for the skill they bring, and where the industry finally has the intelligence layer that makes autonomous construction possible. Both futures start with the same foundation.

The Role

We're hiring a Senior Product Design Engineer to own the mechanical design and product architecture of Ironsite's wearable hardware.

This is a foundational role on the hardware team. You'll design the enclosures, mechanisms, mounts, and thermal systems that let Ironsite's cameras and electronics survive on active jobsites, on ruggedized wearables that spend all day exposed to dust, moisture, impact, temperature extremes, and the kind of abuse most consumer wearables never see. Fit, ergonomics, sealing, thermal performance, drop and vibration resilience, and manufacturability are all in this seat. If the mechanical design doesn't hold up, nothing else does.

You'll work directly with electrical, firmware, and manufacturing engineering across the full product lifecycle, from initial concept through volume production. You'll own enclosure design, camera mounting and optical alignment, mechanism design, sealing and gasketing, thermal management, and DFM partnership with our contract manufacturer. This is one of the most technically demanding seats in the company, and one of the highest-leverage.

What You'll Build

Mechanical design and product architecture.

• Own the mechanical design of Ironsite's wearable hardware end to end, from initial concept and industrial design collaboration through DFM, tooling, and volume production.
• Design enclosures, mechanisms, and mounts for wearable devices that integrate cameras, PCBAs, batteries, and sensor subassemblies into a small, lightweight, comfortable form factor.
• Balance the tradeoffs that matter in a wearable that has to sit on a hardhat all day: weight, size, thermal performance, sealing, ergonomics, and manufacturability.
• Partner with industrial design and Studson on the aesthetic, ergonomic, and integration decisions that determine how Ironsite looks and feels on the workforce.

Camera integration and optical alignment.

• Design the mechanical systems that hold the camera in precise optical alignment across temperature, vibration, and impact.
• Own the tolerances, mounting geometry, and manufacturing controls that keep image quality consistent across every device in the fleet.
• Partner with electrical and firmware engineering on camera bring-up and image quality validation.

Sealing, thermal, and ruggedization.

• Design sealing and gasketing systems that hit IP67 targets in real jobsite conditions (dust, moisture, weather exposure).
• Design thermal management systems that keep the device operating reliably across environmental extremes and continuous recording loads.
• Own drop, vibration, and environmental test plans, and iterate on designs until they pass in the field, not just in the lab.

Manufacturing and DFM.

• Design for mass production from day one. Sheet metal, injection-molded plastics, custom castings, and electromechanical assemblies.
• Own the DFM review process with our contract manufacturer, drive tooling qualification, and support first-article inspection and production ramp.
• Partner with manufacturing engineering on tooling strategy, cycle time reduction, and yield improvement initiatives.

Cross-functional partnership.

• Collaborate with electrical and firmware engineers on PCBA integration, connectors, cable routing, and system-level design decisions.
• Represent mechanical engineering in design reviews, and drive design decisions that balance mechanical, electrical, firmware, and manufacturing constraints.
• Support contract manufacturers with technical guidance, design updates, and issue resolution during production ramp.

Technical Challenges You’ll Solve

• Designing wearable hardware that survives active jobsites. Consumer wearables don’t have to survive what construction wearables do. Dust, moisture, temperature extremes, direct impact, sustained vibration, and 8-12 hour daily use for years. You’ll design the mechanical systems that hold up in the harshest wearable environment in the world.

• Holding optical alignment across environmental extremes. The camera has to en-... .

• Fitting more into less. Every new generation of Ironsite hardware needs to be more capable while getting smaller, lighter, and more comfortable. You’ll make the density, weight, and ergonomic tradeoffs that let us pack more into less without compromising the workforce experience or the product performance.

• Designing for hundreds of thousands of units. Every mechanical decision has manufacturability, cost, and yield implications that compound at scale. You’ll design for high-volume production from day one, and partner with manufacturing engineering to drive the DFM iterations that make ramp smooth rather than painful.

• Sealing and thermal at the wearable scale. IP67 in a device small enough to embed in a hardhat, thermal management for continuous camera and inference workloads, and durability that lasts years. Doing any one of these is a solved problem. Doing all three at once in a wearable is not.

What We’re Looking For

Required

• 5+ years of hands‑on experience designing and shipping physical products, with at least one full product lifecycle delivered in wearables, cameras, or ruggedized consumer or industrial hardware at real volume.
• Deep experience designing camera integration and optical alignment systems. This is not optional. You've owned mechanical integration of imaging systems in production and can speak concretely about the tolerances, mounting strategies, and IQ tradeoffs you made.
• Experience shipping wearable products. You know what it takes to design something that has to be comfortable, durable, and reliable on a person's body for a full day, every day.
• Deep expertise designing rugged electromechanical devices for harsh outdoor environments, including sealing, gasketing, and thermal management for enclosures containing electronics.
• Strong experience designing parts for mass production, particularly sheet metal, injection‑molded plastics, and custom castings.
• Hands‑on experience working directly with contract manufacturers through DFM reviews, first‑article inspection, tooling qualification, and production ramp.
• Proficiency with parametric CAD (Onshape, SOLIDWORKS, Siemens NX, Creo, or similar) and comfort with tolerance analysis, FEA, and DFM analysis tools.
• Strong cross‑functional collaboration with electrical and firmware engineers on PCBA integration, connectors, cable routing, and system‑level architecture.
• A background in Mechanical Engineering, Product Design Engineering, or a related field, or the equivalent experience.

Strongly preferred

• Experience shipping wearable products at consumer volumes (Fitbit, Oura, Whoop, GoPro, Bose, Apple, Meta, Snap, or similar).
• Experience designing IP‑rated devices (IP65 or higher) for outdoor or industrial use.
• Experience with drop, vibration, and environmental test design and validation.
• Experience with high‑volume injection molding, tooling strategy, and mold flow analysis.
• Ability to generate clear technical documentation for internal teams, contract manufacturers, and executive stakeholders.
• Experience with FCC, CE, or other regulatory certification processes for wearable devices.
• Familiarity with electrical CAD tools (Altium, KiCad, Eagle) for cross‑functional collaboration.
• Prior experience as an early mechanical or PDE hire at a hardware startup that scaled from early volumes to full production.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with contract manufacturers in Taiwan, mainland China, or Southeast Asia.
• Experience designing helmets, headwear, PPE, or other wearable products that mount on or around the head.
• Experience with FCC, CE, or other regulatory certification processes for wearable devices.
• Experience with battery pack and optical subassembly mechanical integration.
• Familiarity with electrical CAD tools (Altium, KiCad, Eagle) for cross‑functional collaboration.
• Prior experience as an early mechanical or PDE hire at a hardware startup that scaled from early volumes to full production.

What Success Looks Like

• First 90 days. You know our hardware platform cold, including the current mechanical architecture, the camera integration, the enclosure design, and the manufacturing process. You've contributed meaningful design improvements to a current or upcoming hardware revision.
• First 6 months. You've owned a major mechanical engineering initiative end to end, whether it's a next‑generation enclosure design, a sealing or thermal redesign, or a form factor optimization that materially improves the workforce experience. Your work is shaping what ships next.
• First 12 months. You're the internal authority on mechanical design and product architecture at Ironsite. Our hardware is more durable, more manufacturable, and more comfortable on the workforce because of you. When we scale from thousands of devices to hundreds of thousands, we do it because the mechanical designs you created hold up.

Location, Compensation, & Perks

• San Francisco Bay Area (on‑site)
• Base salary: $175k-$225k per year, commensurate with experience
• Significant early-stage equity
• Full benefits including health, dental, vision, and 401(k) with 6% match
• Daily catered breakfast and lunch
• Office in San Francisco, next to Oracle Park and the Caltrain

Final compensation is determined by experience, location, and level.

Why This Role

Every category-defining wearable company has a product design engineer who was the reason the device actually worked in the real world. Not because they had the fanciest CAD model, but because they cared obsessively about the last 5% of fit, the sealing edge case that would have caused fleet failures, and the manufacturing detail that separates a product that ships from a product that gets recalled.

Ironsite is at that moment. We have the product, the customers, the funding, the manufacturing partnerships, and a hardware roadmap that scales into hundreds of thousands of units. What we need is the product design engineer who is going to make sure the devices actually deliver on what our workforce and our AI depend on.

If you've spent your career designing wearables and camera hardware at scale, and you're ready to do it again on a product that matters more than most, we want to talk.