Mechanical Design Engineer, Manufacturing Fixtures

About the role

Instrumental is a technology company that accelerates new product development and improves production yields for electronics manufacturers like NVIDIA, Cisco, and Meta. We leverage AI to process data from the manufacturing floor, automating failure identification and resolution.

Responsibilities

• Design production-ready fixtures, nests, test setups, and station hardware for electronics manufacturing environments.
• Own mechanical design from requirements gathering through CAD, prototype, fabrication, review, iteration, and deployment support.
• Develop fixture concepts that control product position repeatably while protecting sensitive electronics, cosmetic surfaces, buttons, flexes, connectors, and other high-risk features.
• Apply strong datum strategy, tolerance analysis, material selection, and design-for-manufacturing judgment to ensure fixtures work reliably in production.
• Partner with Solutions Architects, Hardware Engineering, Operations, customers, and manufacturing partners to understand product requirements and factory constraints.
• Communicate design tradeoffs, risks, assumptions, and schedule implications clearly and proactively.
• Support quick-turn fabrication using processes such as CNC machining, 3D printing, laser cutting, sheet metal, and other appropriate manufacturing methods.
• Review and improve existing designs, identifying risks related to manufacturability, assembly, robustness, usability, and long-term line performance.
• Help Instrumental deliver high-quality deployments for customers building some of the world’s most complex electronics products.

Requirements

• 3+ years of mechanical design experience, ideally in electronics manufacturing, fixture design, test hardware, automation, manufacturing engineering, or related roles.
• Deep experience designing fixtures, nests, test hardware, or production tooling for electronics products.
• CAD fluency in at least one professional 3D modeling tool; NX experience is a plus.
• Strong understanding of CNC machining and other quick-turn fabrication methods.
• Practical knowledge of GD&T, tolerance stackups, datum selection, material selection, and design for assembly.
• Experience designing for factory environments, including operator usability, robustness, ESD considerations, product protection, and throughput.

Qualifications

• Strong written and spoken English communication skills.
• Ability to travel occasionally to support customer deployments or manufacturing partners.
• Experience with optics, vision systems, AOI, camera stations, or inspection systems is a plus.

Skills

• Strong mechanical fundamentals.
• Understanding of datum strategy, tolerancing, repeatability, operator usability, part protection, ESD, manufacturability, and quick-turn fabrication.
• Experience working with electronics products such as consumer devices, wearables, PCBs, server hardware, industrial electronics, or other high-volume hardware products.
• Ability to anticipate fixture and production risks before they happen, including alignment drift, product damage, cosmetic issues, tolerance stackups, operator misuse, and throughput constraints.
• Fluency in CAD and comfort spending significant time designing, reviewing, and improving mechanical systems.
• Ability to communicate design tradeoffs clearly to internal teammates, customers, and manufacturing partners.
• Ability to thrive in fast-moving environments where timelines are compressed, requirements are imperfect, and the design still needs to work the first time.

Benefits

Instrumental offers competitive, location-based compensation. The following is a representative annual base salary range for the Bay Area: $130,000-$155,000. Job leveling and salary opportunity are evaluated through our interview process—we review each applicant's experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. Instrumental’s benefits include: Health, Vision, Dental, Public Transit/Commuter Plans, and Parental Leave.