We are representing a client—an innovative, fast-growing company in the robotics and AI space. The company is building an open-source humanoid robotics platform and is committed to democratizing access to advanced robotics by openly sharing hardware designs, firmware, and machine learning models with the global developer community.
The Role
As a Mechatronics Engineer, you will own the design, integration, and validation of the systems that make the humanoid project move and respond to the world. This role sits at the intersection of mechanical design, electrical integration, and embedded control, requiring you to think across all three simultaneously. You will take components from concept through to production-ready hardware, ensuring that every design decision holds up mechanically, integrates cleanly with electronics and firmware, and performs reliably in the field.
What You'll Do
- Design and develop mechanical and electromechanical assemblies across the full humanoid body, including joints, actuators, sensor mounts, and structural members
- Integrate electrical systems, wiring harnesses, PCBA enclosures, and motor controllers into mechanical designs from the ground up
- Develop detailed 3D part and assembly models across plastics, sheet metal, die cast, and composite materials in CATIA or equivalent CAD tools
- Perform tolerance studies, FEA, and kinematic simulations to validate stiffness, strength, and lifetime requirements
- Create production drawings with GD&T annotations and inspection call-outs for manufacturing and QA handoff
- Conduct DFM reviews with contract manufacturers and tooling partners, refining designs for cost, cycle time, and quality
- Hardware Architecture: Create and critique schematics and PCB layouts for power distribution units, motor driver boards, and actuator control electronics.
- Prototype & Debug: Lead bring-up of power systems, sensors, and actuator subassemblies; diagnose and resolve issues across multiple hardware revisions.
- Define and run mechanical and system-level test protocols, analyze failure modes, and iterate based on test data
- Work closely with firmware and controls teams to ensure mechanical and electrical design choices support stable, low-latency control loops
- Contribute to the firm's open-source design efforts, including CAD releases, PCB schematics, manufacturing documentation, and build guides for the broader robotics community
What You'll Bring
- 3 or more years of hands-on mechatronics experience on high-complexity electromechanical products
- Strong proficiency in CAD, ideally CATIA V5/V6, across both detailed parts and multibody assemblies
- Solid understanding of electrical and electronic systems, including motor drivers, sensors, and embedded hardware integration
- Proven track record with plastic injection molding, sheet metal fabrication, and die casting processes
- Experience with GD&T and producing 2D engineering drawings for manufacturing and QA
- Ability to run FEA simulations and interpret results to inform design decisions
- Comfortable working within aggressive cost and weight constraints without sacrificing reliability
- Strong communication skills to drive alignment across suppliers, cross-disciplinary engineers, and leadership
- Lab Instrumentation: Proficiency using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and CAN/UART sniffers (e.g., CANalyzer, Saleae) for in-depth hardware debug.
- Robustness & Grounding: Expertise in connector selection, grounding strategies, harness routing, and EMI suppression techniques.
- Power Electronics: Deep familiarity with low-voltage (<60 V) DC power systems, DC–DC converters, MOSFET gate drivers, current‐sense amplifiers, and passive network design.
Bonus points for:
- Experience with bipedal or humanoid robot hardware, legged locomotion platforms, or high DOF manipulators
- Familiarity with CAN bus, motor controllers, and how mechanical and electrical design choices affect firmware and control integration
- Knowledge of plastics engineering including material selection, shrinkage factors, and mechanical property optimization
- Familiarity with parallel mechanisms and non-standard joint configurations such as RSU ankle designs or parallel actuation
- Scripting or automation experience in Python to streamline CAD workflows and data analysis
- Familiarity with MATLAB for system-level modeling and tolerance stack-ups
- Familiarity with sim-to-real workflows and how hardware decisions affect locomotion policy training and transfer
- Prior involvement in robotics or wearable systems where mechanical tolerances and ergonomics are critical