Robotics Engineer (Mechanical)

About the role

We are building an autonomous field robot that drives rebar foundations into the ground at precise coordinates across utility-scale solar sites: the machine that makes our construction model an order of magnitude faster and cheaper than conventional pile driving. You will be the mechanical lead for this robot: a hands-on engineer who owns the machine end to end, from chassis to tool head, and who is equally comfortable with the electromechanical guts (motors, drivetrains, actuation) as with structures and mechanisms.

This is a ground-floor role on a new hardware program, with founding-team-level ownership and direct line of sight to a 100+ MW project in construction. You will design, build, break, and rebuild prototypes at our Texas pilot site, and your decisions will define the product.

Responsibilities

• Own the mechanical architecture of the robot: chassis/platform, mast and tool head, rebar handling and feed system, and the driving mechanism (percussive, vibratory, or press; you’ll help make that call based on soil testing).
• Design drivetrain and locomotion for rough, unimproved desert terrain: motor sizing and selection, gearboxes, wheels/tracks, suspension.
• Specify and integrate actuators (electric and/or hydraulic), sensors, and power distribution in collaboration with our electrical/mechatronics engineer.
• Perform structural and dynamic analysis: reaction loads during driving, vibration, fatigue, tip-over stability.
• Build and iterate rapidly: machine prototype parts, work with local fab shops, get hardware into the dirt at Fort Stockton and learn from every failure.
• Define the tolerance budget with our perception and racking teams: what placement accuracy the robot must deliver, and what the racking can absorb.
• Take the design from prototype toward a small production fleet: DFM, reliability, serviceability in the field.

Qualifications

• 4–10+ years of mechanical engineering experience with meaningful time at a robotics company (construction robotics, ag-tech/off-highway autonomy, warehouse/field robotics, or similar).
• Demonstrated ownership of an electromechanical system that shipped or operated in the real world: not just CAD, but motors, drivetrains, actuation, and integration.
• Strong fundamentals: structures, mechanisms, GD&T, materials, and enough EE fluency to select motors and drives, read schematics, and debug an integrated system.
• Rapid prototyping instincts: comfortable in a shop, comfortable in the field, biased toward building over analyzing.

Nice to have

• Heavy machinery and hydraulics experience.
• Outdoor/mobile robots and harsh-environment design.
• Experience with pile driving, drilling, or ground-engaging tools.