Hiring: Founding Engineer (Hardware)
At Cargo, we just closed several $Ms in funding from some of the best robotics investors in the Valley to transform a massive legacy industry, and we’re hiring our founding engineering team.
If you’re a rockstar electromechanical or mechanical engineer with a passion for robotics, we want to talk to you. See the JD and instructions on how to get in touch with us below.
About us
Cargo is building the robotic delivery platform of tomorrow. You can think of us as an automated warehouse on wheels.
After taking jobs at UPS and FedEx, we realized that the last mile was broken and parcel delivery needed a new approach. Although delivery volumes have grown 5x in the past decade, delivery vans are stuck in 1950 and today’s process is highly inefficient and injury prone. Our first product is the X1 Robotic Cargo Bay which reimagines the guts of every delivery van you see on the road, and saves hours of labor per day for each vehicle. Our vision is to fully automate the delivery chain with radically more efficient networks that reduce carbon emissions and congestion to enable a more prosperous and healthy future.
We’re looking for an unstoppable and versatile hardware engineer to create many unique systems and help us launch pilots for X1. You’ll then rapidly iterate alongside our CTO and test with our customers to develop the complete V1 product (candidates will need to be able to work locally with us in the SF Bay to enable tight collaboration and fast iteration). We’re a user and product-centric company, so expect to deliver some actual parcels in your first week at work!
Get ready, there’s lots to build :)
What you’ll do
Develop key parts of our systems from foggy inklings to scaled manufacturing: you will integrate motors, sensors, end effectors, mechanisms, and code
Brainstorm new designs and features to solve our customers’ problems, and collaborate tightly with our software team to identify dependencies build the best possible product
Use whiteboards, CAD, rapid prototyping, and elbow grease to design, test, and iterate
Codify promising designs with detailed engineering and manufacturing analysis and documentation (including drawings), specs & functional requirements, and test plans
Lead pilot builds of the systems and help drive our transition to production
Directly support and debug customer deployments of X1 and subsequent products
Help to source and manage new team members and contractors as we grow
Personal characteristics: you are
Biased toward action: take initiative and get stuff done
Driven and gritty: can take punches and keep on going
A quick study: learn fast and teach those around you
Calm in chaos: keep your composure when work is a hurricane
Self-aware and low ego: take and give feedback with grace
You need to bring this:
BS or higher in Mechanical or Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or equivalent experience
Experience developing complex mechanical products: ideally including mechanism design, selection and control of servo and stepper motors, and integration of sensors, electronics, and cables
Experience with manufacturing techniques for mid and high volume manufacturing
Strong mechanical intuition and shop build skills crafting proof-of-concept prototypes
High proficiency in CAD (SolidWorks preferred): complex assemblies, FEA, & drawings
Experience building embedded projects in C++ using Arduino / ESP32
Good engineering judgment to meet deadlines and product performance goals: you can both hack and deploy fast, and structure robust systems that hold up to abuse and scale
You thrive in startup environments, and can multi-task and manage conflicting deadlines
We’d love if you also have this:
Built and deployed robot hardware to production
Experience with FMEA, tolerance, kinematic, and vibration analysis, DFM, and BOMs
Experience with robot EOAT & manipulators such as vacuum pickup or soft robotics
Strong electronics and programming fundamentals including ROS or Python
Familiarity with software stack technologies (Linux, Git, etc.)
Benefits and Workplace
Salary: $140-180K
Equity: 0.1- 0.3
Benefits: Healthcare plan, 401k, PTO, parental leave, and much more!
On-site 5 days a week (Menlo Park)
Does this sound like you?
If you’re still reading and this sounds like a job you’d kick a** in, email us a resume and one paragraph telling us the most exceptional thing you’ve built.
Also don’t worry if you’re missing a skill or two - we value generalists with the motivation to learn and solve important problems more than an exact skills match.
We’ll try to get back to you as promptly as we can.
<daniel@withcargo.com>
<peter@withcargo.com>
