Job description

Industrial Design Engineer San Francisco · Onsite · Full-time About Bracket Bot We believe planet earth can thrive and be alive. Robots should manufacture goods, clean roadways, tidy our rooms, build more homes, cook healthy food, and lower the cost of living. We aren’t quite there yet, robots are too expensive, too difficult to program, fragile, and unfriendly. Bracket Bot is changing that. We believe that robots are currently in the ENIAC era and we are bringing them to the Macbook era. We believe in high performance engineering teams where everyone you work with is what you imagined Bell Labs employees to be like. Intelligent, scrappy, dedicated, kind. At Bracket Bot, we have a few objectives. We are working to make the ideal role model of a company, one where everyone is at the top of their field, inventing new ways to solve the problems we face across mechanical, electrical, software, and machine learning. What does a company that creates entirely new ways that teams work together look like? A company that invents new materials for lighter weight actuators and structures? A company that creates and publishes new inverse kinematics algorithms for robots? A company that is thinking radically differently, and executing on another level. In every field there are small teams who did something their peers had decided was impossible. The 10-second barrier in sprinting, or the eight engineers who left Motorola and made the 6502 for 10x lower cost than other chips at the time making the personal computer possible. SpaceX has landed the same rocket 36 times. Bracket Bot believes actuated, alive machines can be glorious, affordable, easy to use, and ubiquitous, and we are pulling that future forward. Our products are a mirror of what we think about the world, on engineering & research, and what we think should be introduced into the world. In history, there are simply products that should exist, and only once created, are obvious in hindsight. Bracket Bot’s mission is to introduce as many of these products into the world as possible. We believe there are hundreds of these in the space of robotics. Across physical robot hardware, software and operating system; the infrastructure and distributed systems they connect to; the AI inference they run, both local and cloud, and so much more. Our first product, Bracket Bot 1, exemplifies what a small team of highly talented people can do. At Bracket Bot, we genuinely believe 100x engineers exist, and a room full of them can create things that dozens of other companies have failed to do. We’ve brought to market a robot that is 10x lower cost than any other robot in its category, while out performing them on manipulation, autonomous navigation, speech interaction, and developer UX. We’re backed by Fifty Years (Scott Phoenix), BoxGroup, SV Angel, Betaworks, Pace Capital, angels including Nat Friedman, Logan Kilpatrick (Google AI), Guillermo Rauch (Vercel) and others from Tesla AI, Physical Intelligence, and Markforged. About the role We’re hiring an Industrial Design Engineer to shape how our robots look, feel, and fit into the world. You’ll take ideas from sketches and form studies through CAD, physical prototypes, material and finish samples, and production details. You’ll work closely with mechanical and electrical engineering to make products that feel coherent, are intuitive to use, and can be built, assembled, and serviced. This is a hands-on role: you’ll make models, test ideas with real hardware, and refine the details yourself. What you’ll do • Develop the robot’s form, proportions, surfaces, and visual design language. • Design touch points, handles, covers, controls, and access for everyday use and service. • Explore concepts through sketches, CAD, renderings, appearance models, and functional prototypes. • Define colors, materials, finishes, textures, and part transitions. • Work with engineering on sensor placement, packaging, seams, fasteners, manufacturing constraints, and assembly. • Work with suppliers to evaluate samples and carry design intent through tooling and production. • Test designs with people and refine ergonomics, usability, durability, and perceived quality. What we’re looking for • A strong portfolio of physical products showing your role and how designs developed. • Strong judgment in form, proportion, detail, materials, and usability. • Ability to communicate ideas through sketches, CAD, renderings, and physical models. • Experience working through manufacturing and assembly constraints with engineers. • Comfort building prototypes and making tradeoffs between appearance, function, cost, and reliability. Nice to have • Experience with robotics, consumer hardware, or electromechanical products. • Surface modeling, design for molding or fabrication, and supplier collaboration. • Experience taking a product from concept to production. How to apply Send a short note and a portfolio showing products you’ve designed, prototypes you’ve built, and the decisions behind your work. We’re interested in how you think and what you can make. Bracket Bot is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

Requirements

Must-haves

Industrial Design Engineer
San Francisco · Onsite · Full-time
What you’ll do
Develop the robot’s form, proportions, surfaces, and visual design language.
Design touch points, handles, covers, controls, and access for everyday use and service.
Explore concepts through sketches, CAD, renderings, appearance models, and functional prototypes.
Define colors, materials, finishes, textures, and part transitions.
Work with engineering on sensor placement, packaging, seams, fasteners, manufacturing constraints, and assembly.
Work with suppliers to evaluate samples and carry design intent through tooling and production.
Test designs with people and refine ergonomics, usability, durability, and perceived quality.
What we’re looking for
A strong portfolio of physical products showing your role and how designs developed.
Strong judgment in form, proportion, detail, materials, and usability.
Ability to communicate ideas through sketches, CAD, renderings, and physical models.
Experience working through manufacturing and assembly constraints with engineers.
Comfort building prototypes and making tradeoffs between appearance, function, cost, and reliability.

Nice-to-haves

Experience with robotics, consumer hardware, or electromechanical products.
Surface modeling, design for molding or fabrication, and supplier collaboration.
Experience taking a product from concept to production.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

machine learningai

Platform: ashby
Effort: quick