Founding Mechanical Engineer
Instance Labs builds an autonomous, bench-scale PCB production line that fabricates, assembles, and tests circuit boards from design files. It serves hardware teams including robotics, aerospace, RF/wireless, medtech, research labs, defense organizations, and startups.
About Instance Labs
Instance Labs develops the Fabricator, a continuous in-house PCB line comprising a PCB printer, assembler, and tester. Customers submit Gerbers, a bill of materials, and pick-and-place files; the system fabricates multilayer boards, populates components, and performs net and functional testing. The company positions the product for organizations that need rapid, private hardware-prototyping iterations without relying on external fabrication and assembly vendors.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
Instance Labs is hiring a Founding Mechanical Engineer to own mechanisms, motion systems, fixtures, couplings, robotic handoffs, and test interfaces for process cells that automate circuit-board production. The role is on-site in San Francisco every day, with six-day weeks described as normal.
Requirements
- Deep mechanical engineering experience with accurate, repeatable mechanisms and measured performance.
- A record of building real hardware that works beyond a demonstration, ideally in production or the field.
- Strong experimental problem-solving and evidence of taking on difficult physical problems.
- Electrical and mechatronics intuition covering motors, sensors, wiring, power, grounding, and controls.
- Ability to write, read, and debug code for testing or controlling mechanisms.
- Formal mechanical engineering training, related education, or intense hands-on experience.
- Ability to work on-site in San Francisco every day and accommodate a demanding six-day work schedule.
Responsibilities
- Design and validate precision motion systems, frames, fixtures, and mechanisms.
- Build board-handling and robotic handoff mechanisms, couplings, and end effectors.
- Develop fabrication and via-forming mechanisms for feeding, actuation, and clamping.
- Build test fixtures and mechanical interfaces for probing, measurement, and diagnosis.
- Prototype at the bench, measure performance and failure rates, and iterate for sustained automated operation.
- Collaborate with electrical and software engineers to integrate motors, sensors, and controls.
Benefits
- Opportunity to design a new process-cell architecture from a blank sheet and see the mechanisms operate in customer production environments.