Role OverviewWe're looking for a mechanical engineer who designs and builds connected consumer and enterprise devices, including SmartScale, lockers, POS systems, and hardware for emerging automation and robotics applications. In this role, you will help define what to build and own mechanical development from ambiguous user or business needs through architecture, rapid prototyping, and field pilots.
This is a build-heavy role on a small, senior, multidisciplinary team. You'll work directly with suppliers, supported by an NPI/program partner, and provide mechanical leadership during new product introduction (NPI). Specialist reliability expertise can support deeper validation as programs mature.
San Francisco-based candidates are preferred; hybrid arrangements are acceptable. The role includes hands-on collaboration around prototypes and lab work.
Key Responsibilities- Help define product requirements and features from customer needs and business priorities. Explain trade-offs among user experience, performance, cost, reliability, and development time.
- Build prototypes for new product ideas, partner on pilot design, and turn findings from real use into requirements and designs for larger pilots. Communicate what was learned and what should happen next.
- Create CAD, drawings, and physical prototypes; choose materials, components, and fabrication methods appropriate to the development stage.
- Apply mechanical fundamentals, tolerance analysis, and targeted calculations or simulation to the risks that matter. Design and run physical tests to check assumptions.
- Integrate mechanical designs with electronics, sensors, and firmware, and debug problems across those interfaces with teammates.
- Serve as the mechanical engineering lead with manufacturing partners during NPI: investigate mechanical and build-quality issues, assess proposed changes, and help define and verify corrective actions.
- Work directly with suppliers on prototype parts, design feedback, build issues, and readiness for larger pilots. Bring in specialist support for safety, reliability, tooling, or production questions as needed.
Required Qualifications- Hands-on experience taking a physical product or subsystem from incomplete requirements through mechanical design, prototyping, debugging, and testing, with evidence of learning from users or real operating conditions.
- Strong mechanical design fundamentals, including materials and process selection, fit and tolerances, assembly, and practical reliability considerations.
- Proficiency with a mechanical CAD package such as SolidWorks, Creo, NX, or equivalent, and the ability to create drawings and specifications suppliers can use.
- Product judgment: you can question requirements, understand the customer problem, and explain technical choices in terms of cost, usability, performance, and business value.
- Ability to operate independently through ambiguity, prioritize work, and communicate decisions and risks clearly.
- Experience collaborating with suppliers or manufacturing partners and with engineers from other disciplines.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Must be comfortable regularly exercising discretion and independent judgment in performing job duties, including evaluating options, making informed decisions, and determining appropriate courses of action within the scope of assigned responsibilities.
Preferred Qualifications- Strongly preferred: experience bringing products into production, supporting NPI, or resolving manufacturing defects, ideally in mass production. This may include design for manufacturing and assembly, tooling, reliability testing, or field failure analysis. Personally leading a high-volume ramp is not required.
- Experience in a startup, a small hardware team, or another setting where you helped define the problem and owned work across disciplinary boundaries.
- Basic electrical engineering, firmware, or programming capability that helps you build and debug integrated prototypes.
- Experience with electromechanical products, mechanisms, enclosures, sensors, or merchant-facing hardware.
CompensationThe successful candidate's starting pay will fall within the pay range listed below and is determined based on job-related factors including, but not limited to, skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. Base salary is localized according to an employee's work location. Ranges are market-dependent and may be modified in the future.
In addition to base salary, the compensation for this role includes opportunities for equity grants. Talk to your recruiter for more information.
DoorDash cares about you and your overall well-being. That's why we offer a comprehensive benefits package to all regular employees, which includes a 401(k) plan with employer matching, 16 weeks of paid parental leave, wellness benefits, commuter benefits match, paid time off and paid sick leave in compliance with applicable laws (e.g. Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act). DoorDash also offers medical, dental, and vision benefits, 11 paid holidays, disability and basic life insurance, family-forming assistance, and a mental health program, among others.
To learn more about our benefits, visit our careers page here.
See below for paid time off details:
- For salaried roles: flexible paid time off/vacation, plus 80 hours of paid sick time per year.
- For hourly roles: vacation accrued at about 1 hour for every 25.97 hours worked (e.g. about 6.7 hours/month if working 40 hours/week; about 3.4 hours/month if working 20 hours/week), and paid sick time accrued at 1 hour for every 30 hours worked (e.g. about 5.8 hours/month if working 40 hours/week; about 2.9 hours/month if working 20 hours/week).
The national base pay range for this position within the United States, including Illinois and Colorado.
$139,400-$205,000 USD
