About the Role

We are building vision-language-action models that enable robots to perform complex manipulation tasks in real-world environments. The quality, reliability, and scalability of the hardware used to collect data and deploy these systems are fundamental to our success.

We are looking for a Staff Hardware Engineer to define and lead the technical architecture for our robotic data-collection platforms, end effectors, camera systems, and customer workcells. You will own major hardware programs from early requirements and system architecture through validation, production, and fleet deployment.

This is a senior individual-contributor role with broad technical influence and a clear path to leadership. You will establish engineering standards, resolve complex cross-disciplinary tradeoffs, lead high-risk design efforts, and create reusable hardware platforms that can support new manipulation tasks, robot embodiments, and customer environments.

You will remain deeply hands-on-designing hardware, building prototypes, reviewing test data, and troubleshooting systems in the field-while also raising the technical bar across the organization through design reviews, mentorship, and long-range technical planning.

You will work closely with robotics, controls, machine learning, data operations, manufacturing, safety, and customer deployment teams.

What You'll Do

Hardware Architecture and Technical Leadership

• Define the technical architecture and long-term roadmap for robotic data-collection systems and customer-deployed workcells.
• Translate company, product, model-training, and customer requirements into scalable hardware platforms and subsystem specifications.
• Own system-level tradeoffs across mechanical design, sensing, controls, compute, safety, reliability, manufacturability, serviceability, cost, and deployment speed.
• Identify the highest-risk technical problems, establish validation strategies, and drive programs from ambiguous requirements to reliable deployed systems.
• Establish design principles, interfaces, qualification standards, documentation practices, and configuration-management processes across the hardware organization.
• Lead architecture reviews, design reviews, failure investigations, and technical readiness assessments for critical hardware programs.
• Serve as a technical authority for complex decisions spanning mechanical, electrical, optical, software, and operational domains.
• Mentor engineers and help raise the quality of system design, technical judgment, documentation, and root-cause analysis across the team.

Data-Collection Systems

• Architect robotic data-collection platforms that produce consistent, high-quality training data across operators, tasks, sites, and robot configurations.
• Partner with ML and data teams to determine how embodiment design, sensor placement, calibration, latency, repeatability, and hardware variation affect data quality and policy performance.
• Define system requirements for payload, workspace, stiffness, compliance, precision, visibility, ergonomics, cycle life, safety, and operator throughput.
• Develop modular architectures that allow new sensors, end effectors, robots, and task fixtures to be integrated without redesigning the entire platform.
• Establish instrumentation and telemetry strategies that make hardware health, configuration, calibration, and data-quality issues observable across the fleet.

End Effectors and Manipulation Hardware

• Lead the design and development of end effectors, including grippers, custom fingers, tool interfaces, compliant mechanisms, force-sensing elements, and quick-change systems.
• Translate manipulation-task requirements and policy failure modes into actionable hardware improvements.
• Develop reusable end-effector architectures that balance dexterity, robustness, sensing, manufacturability, weight, cost, and serviceability.
• Drive analytical and empirical validation of grasping performance, structural integrity, compliance, repeatability, wear, and lifecycle durability.
• Guide make-versus-buy decisions and evaluate commercial components, custom mechanisms, actuators, sensors, and manufacturing approaches.

Workcell and Customer Deployment

• Define reference architectures for complete robotic workcells incorporating robot arms, end effectors, cameras, compute, networking, power distribution, safety systems, fixtures, and operator interfaces.
• Lead technical discovery for customer deployments, including site surveys, task analysis, risk identification, and requirements definition.
• Resolve constraints involving layout, reachability, utilities, networking, lighting, environmental conditions, safety, workflow integration, and service access.
• Partner directly with customers and internal deployment teams during installation, commissioning, acceptance testing, troubleshooting, and system upgrades.
• Create deployment standards, acceptance criteria, maintenance strategies, spare-parts plans, and escalation procedures that enable systems to be supported at scale.
• Use lessons from field deployments to improve the core hardware platform and reduce installation time, service burden, and site-specific engineering.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, mechatronics, robotics, electrical engineering, or a related discipline-or equivalent practical experience.
• Typically 8+ years of experience developing complex mechanical, electromechanical, robotic, automation, or sensing systems.
• A track record of leading technically complex hardware programs from ambiguous requirements through architecture, detailed design, validation, production, and field deployment.
• Demonstrated ownership of systems containing interacting mechanical, electrical, optical, software, and operational elements.
• Deep proficiency with a modern 3D CAD platform such as SolidWorks, Onshape, Creo, or NX.
• Strong command of mechanical engineering fundamentals, including tolerance analysis, GD&T, structural design, materials, fasteners, bearings, actuators, cable management, and manufacturing processes.
• Experience designing production-quality parts and assemblies and creating drawings, bills of materials, assembly procedures, and configuration-controlled documentation.
• Hands-on experience integrating cameras, sensors, actuators, embedded compute, networking, and power systems.
• Experience designing verification, qualification, lifecycle, and reliability tests for complex hardware.
• Strong systems-engineering judgment and the ability to make clear tradeoffs among performance, schedule, reliability, cost, manufacturability, and serviceability.
• Experience leading design reviews, resolving cross-functional technical disagreements, and influencing engineering direction without relying on formal authority.
• Ability to communicate effectively with engineers, operators, suppliers, executives, and customers.
• Willingness to work hands-on with hardware and travel to customer sites as needed.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing robotic grippers, custom fingers, tool changers, compliant mechanisms, tactile or force-sensing systems, or other manipulation hardware.
• Experience architecting industrial robot, cobot, laboratory automation, warehouse automation, or machine-vision workcells.
• Experience developing hardware used specifically for robot learning, teleoperation, demonstration collection, or large-scale robotics datasets.
• Experience with machine safety and robotics standards such as ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066, ANSI/RIA R15.06, or related customer-site requirements.
• Experience with DFMEA, fault-tree analysis, tolerance analysis, accelerated lifecycle testing, environmental qualification, and formal engineering change control.
• Experience managing technical relationships with strategic suppliers, contract manufacturers, and external system integrators.