Product Design Engineer - Grounded

Detroit, MI (in-person)
The Role

We're hiring a Product Design Engineer to own the heart of our product: the module library. Every Grounded vehicle - mobile health clinic, food service van, command unit, adventure van - is assembled from a library of engineered interior modules, configured to the mission. That library is the product, and this role designs, models, and maintains it.

You'll work directly with our CPO at the intersection of mechanical engineering and product design: sourcing best-in-class components, developing new modules, packaging vehicle layouts for customer proposals, and producing the visuals that sell them. What you design gets fabricated in-house and installed in real vehicles - and it feeds our product configurator, so the library you build becomes something customers configure themselves.
What you'd actually do

• Design and 3D model interior modules - cabinetry, medical and food equipment integrations, mounts - and own the module library as the single source of truth
• Scout the market for best-in-class components for the library stack: power systems, refrigeration, commercial equipment, hardware. Compare specs, weight, power draw, certifications, and cost, and make the pick defensible
• Develop vehicle configurations and packaging layouts for customer proposals, validating fit, weight, and power budgets
• Produce renderings and visualizations for sales, proposals, and marketing
• Build parametric versions of modules for our product configurator, working alongside the software team
• Support prototype builds on the floor and fold what you learn back into the library

What we're looking for

• Degree in mechanical engineering, industrial design, or both
• Strong CAD fluency and comfort moving between tools (Onshape, NX, or similar)
• Rendering and visualization skills (KeyShot, Blender, or similar)
• Serious product research skills: you can survey a component category you've never touched, cut through spec sheets and vendor claims, and land on the right part fast
• Interest in parametric or computational design - you don't need to be a software engineer, but you should like working with them
• A bias toward buildable: DFM instincts, real materials, real tolerances
• Startup fit: comfortable with ambiguity, you own outcomes rather than tasks

Nice-to-haves

• Aluminum fabrication, composite, or sheet metal knowledge
• Vehicle or furniture industry experience
• Grasshopper or scripting experience

Compensation

Competitive base salary + meaningful equity in Grounded + comprehensive health insurance
Why this role is different

At most companies this job is a slice: rendering someone else's design, or modeling parts that never leave the screen. Here you own the library the whole company builds from - the modules you design get fabricated downstairs, installed in vehicles, and put to work by real customers weeks later. You'll work directly with the CPO, touch every vertical we serve, and see your work show up everywhere: in proposals, in the configurator, in marketing, and on the road.