Mechanical Engineer - Winter 2026 Internship

Medraai
San Francisco, CA
On-siteCareer-pivot friendly

Who this role is best for

Mechanical engineering students or recent graduates with hands-on hardware experience will find this ambitious, in-person role in San Francisco suits their technical and collaborative aspirations.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with a background in hardware design and a passion for robotics and automation
    — “Experience designing, building, testing, and scaling hardware”
  • Individuals who thrive in cross-disciplinary teams and enjoy rapid prototyping
    — “Are hands-on and willing to cross discipline boundaries to solve a problem”
  • Engineers who enjoy debugging and assembling hardware with a hacker’s mindset
    — “Strong mechanical intuition and hardware debugging and assembly skills”

Things to consider

  • The role requires full-time, in-person work at the San Francisco office during the winter internship period
    — “Candidates must work full-time, in-person at our San Francisco office”
  • This is a high-ownership environment with a focus on intense design discussions and quick resolution of conflicts
    — “We don’t mind intense discussions about design tradeoffs. If we have arguments or miscommunication, we resolve conflicts quickly and empathetically.”

How to stand out

  • Highlight your experience with part design, material selection, and manufacturing techniques in your resume and interviews
    — “Passion for the gritty details of part design, material selection, and manufacturing techniques”
  • Showcase your ability to build assemblies and produce technical drawings using standard mechanical engineering tools
    — “Experience with mechanical engineering tools and best practices in production to design components, produce drawings, and build assemblies”
  • Demonstrate your familiarity with rapid prototyping and your willingness to adapt to multiple responsibilities
    — “Know your way around rapid prototyping technology”
  • Emphasize any experience with robotics systems, especially in laboratory or manufacturing contexts
    — “Experience with robotics in a laboratory or manufacturing environment”
Pace · SteadyCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Individual

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • Contributed to the development of scientific instruments
  • Participated in team projects
Typical background
Undergraduate or graduate studies in mechanical engineering

Skills & requirements

Required

Mechanical EngineeringHardware DebuggingRapid PrototypingAssembly Skills

Preferred

Plm/document ControlRobotics

Stack & domain

Mechanical EngineeringHardware DebuggingAssembly SkillsPart DesignMaterial SelectionManufacturing TechniquesRapid PrototypingProblem-solvingTeamworkAdaptabilityEngineeringRoboticsManufacturing

About the role

Original posting from Medraai via Ashby

ABOUT THE ROLE:

Paid Winter 2026 Internship (Jan. - Apr., dates flexible). Candidates must work full-time, in-person at our San Francisco office located in the Mission.

WHAT WE'RE BUILDING:

We have been quietly building the foundational layers of our Physical AI Scientist platform:

🤖 Physical AI that can operate scientific instruments with human-level dexterity.

🧪 Scientific AI that can analyze results, reason about next steps, and close the loop autonomously.

This is an incredibly ambitious mission, but we believe that a team of ambitious people with high ownership can accomplish incredible things.

THE TEAM:

  • We’re a team of passionate, mission-driven engineers from companies like Tesla, Amazon, SpaceX, and Neuralink. We’re collaborative and love moving fast, both with our product and on team trips skiing or go-karting!
  • As a team, we love nerding out about engineering and robotics — plus other topics like race cars or cooking. We like learning new things and then sharing our new knowledge with each other.
  • Our team is opinionated and straightforward. We don’t mind intense discussions about design tradeoffs. If we have arguments or miscommunication, we resolve conflicts quickly and empathetically.

IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL:

  • Intern in our Mechanical Engineering team, focusing on building the tools used across our product to accelerate science

LET'S TALK IF YOU HAVE:

  • Strong mechanical intuition and hardware debugging and assembly skills
  • Passion for the gritty details of part design, material selection, and manufacturing techniques
  • Experience with mechanical engineering tools and best practices in production to design components, produce drawings, and build assemblies
  • Experience designing, building, testing, and scaling hardware
  • A hacker’s mindset - getting quickly to a good-enough solution
  • Are hands-on and willing to cross discipline boundaries to solve a problem
  • Know your way around rapid prototyping technology
  • A willingness to wear many hats / a flexible attitude towards responsibilities and scope

NICE TO HAVE:

  • Experience managing PLM/document control systems
  • Mechatronics and circuit design background
  • Knowledge of robotics, motion control, camera, force/torque sensors
  • Experience or familiarity with robot arm manipulators
  • Experience with robotics in a laboratory or manufacturing environment
  • Experience writing code for robotics systems

This position is 100% in-person, you must be able to come on-site to our San Francisco office.

Medra is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies. We value diversity at Medra and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!

Source: Medraai careers (Ashby)

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