Associate Mechanical Engineer

About the role

At Rhoda AI, we’re building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. We own the full robotics stack from high-performance hardware and robot systems to the infrastructure and state-of-the-art foundation world models that control our robots. Our robots are designed to be generalists capable of operating in complex, real-world environments and handling long-tail edge cases, made possible by our cutting edge research and end-to-end system design. We've raised over $450M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.

Responsibilities

• Design and iterate on the packaging of the leg actuator — mounting hardware, spacers, alignment features, and cable exits — to interface requirements defined by senior engineers and the actuation team
• Develop the design of the leg's structural cast parts under supervision: building CAD geometry for stiffness and mass efficiency, applying draft and wall-thickness rules, and incorporating vendor feedback on castability
• Implement the thermal design of the leg — conduction paths, thermal interface materials, and heat-sinking features — and run thermal tests to validate performance against limits set by the actuation and electrical teams
• Run structural analysis on leg components — static strength, stiffness, and basic fatigue checks — and correlate results against physical test with guidance from senior engineers
• Create and maintain CAD models, drawings, tolerance stacks, and BOMs to support design reviews and manufacturing handoffs
• Build test setups and prototypes, run structural, thermal, and durability tests, collect data, and document results
• Collaborate with the mobile base, torso, actuation, and electrical teams to keep your designs aligned with full-system requirements

Requirements

• BS in Mechanical Engineering or a closely related field
• 0–2 years of experience in mechanical design or hardware engineering (internships, co-ops, and serious project teams count)
• Proficiency with CAD software (Catia, SolidWorks, Fusion 360, Onshape, or similar) for part and assembly design
• Solid grasp of mechanics fundamentals — statics, stress, stiffness, and heat transfer — and the instinct to sanity-check designs with quick hand calculations
• Familiarity with common manufacturing processes — machining, casting, sheet metal, 3D printing — and how they inform design decisions
• Comfort working hands-on with hardware: assembling components, running tests, and troubleshooting physical systems
• Strong attention to detail and ability to follow and contribute to engineering documentation practices
• Eagerness to learn directly from senior engineers in a fast-moving environment and take feedback well through rapid design iterations

Qualifications

• Nice to have (but not required): coursework or project experience with cast, molded, or otherwise tooled parts — anything where you had to design for a manufacturing process
• Exposure to FEA (structural or thermal) and correlating simple analyses to physical parts
• Experience on a robotics competition or engineering project team (FIRST, Formula SAE, Baja, university robotics)
• Hands-on experience with FDM or SLA 3D printing for functional prototypes
• Familiarity with GD&T and engineering drawing standards
• Personal projects that involved designing, building, and iterating on real mechanisms — we'd love to see them

Benefits

Grow fast under close supervision — you'll get day-to-day mentorship from experienced engineers, real design ownership within a focused subsystem, and a fast track to becoming a strong structures engineer. Join at a foundational moment and put your name on the structure that holds up a next-generation humanoid robot.

Pay

$120K – $150K

Schedule

Full-time