# Senior Mechanical Engineer > Shift Robotics · Austin, United States · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-30 **Salary:** USD 90,000–150,000 **Workplace:** on_site ## Description We are making the world a more walkable place. Through intuitive personal mobility, we make walking faster, more efficient, and more accessible, empowering people to choose walking over sitting in traffic. Our flagship product, **Moonwalkers**, are the world's fastest robotic shoes, augmenting natural walking with intelligent locomotion assistance. By giving people the ability to Moonwalk, we believe the path toward a more human-scale future can be reached on your own two feet. We are covered in [Time](https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2023/6324451/moonwalker-electric-shoe-skates/), [Wired](https://www.wired.com/video/watch/on-the-go-moonwalkers), [New Atlas](https://newatlas.com/urban-transport/shift-robotics-moonwalkers-dusk/), [CNET](https://www.cnet.com/culture/fashion/worlds-fastest-shoes-vow-to-get-you-walking-as-quickly-as-you-run/), [Gizomodo](https://gizmodo.com/moonwalkers-shoes-increase-walking-speed-kickstarter-1849704064), [PCMag](https://www.pcmag.com/news/shift-robotics-used-ai-to-create-the-worlds-fastest-shoes) and many other tech press. As a Mechanical Engineer at Shift, you will own the mechanical design of the next generation of Moonwalkers, from first sketch and prototype through tooling and mass production. Our product is a wearable robot: motors, gearing, batteries, sensors and electronics packed into a shoe that a person stands, walks and climbs stairs on every day. The mechanical design has to be light, compact, comfortable and tough enough to survive real-world impact, water and wear. You'll work in a small team alongside electrical, firmware and gait-control engineers, and you'll move fast between CAD, the shop and the test bench. ## Responsibilities - **Product Design:** Design mechanical systems for wearable robotic footwear, including housings, drivetrains, gearing, wheel and suspension assemblies, battery enclosures and binding/fit components. - **Mechatronic Packaging:** Package motors, sensors, PCBAs, batteries and wiring into a compact, lightweight structure. Work with electrical and firmware engineers on thermal, sealing, connector and cable-routing decisions. - **Prototyping & Fabrication:** Build fast prototypes with 3D printing, CNC and machining. Assemble, test and iterate hardware hands-on in our Austin lab. - **Analysis & Validation:** Run tolerance stack-ups and FEA (structural, fatigue, vibration, drop/impact). Write and execute test plans for durability, water ingress and user-load cases, and turn results into design changes. - **Design for Manufacturing:** Design injection-molded, die-cast and machined parts with DFM/DFA in mind. Release production drawings with GD&T (ASME Y14.5) and manage BOMs and engineering change orders. - **Supplier & Production Support:** Work with vendors and contract manufacturers on tooling, first-article inspection, yield and quality issues through EVT, DVT and PVT. - **Safety & Reliability:** A person is wearing the product. Design with safety margins, run failure analysis (DFMEA, root cause) and drive fixes from field returns and test failures. - **Documentation:** Keep CAD, drawings, specs and test reports clean and current so the team can build on your work. ## Requirements - **Education & Experience:** Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field (or equivalent experience), with **3+ years** designing hardware products that reached real users or production. - **CAD:** Strong production-grade CAD skills in SolidWorks, Siemens NX, Fusion 360, Creo or CATIA, including large assemblies and surfacing. - **Drawings & Tolerancing:** Ability to create engineering drawings with GD&T (ASME Y14.5) and run tolerance analysis. - **Prototyping:** Hands-on fabrication experience with 3D printing, CNC and machining, and comfort with shop tools and test fixtures. - **DFM/DFA:** Solid understanding of design for manufacturing and assembly, materials selection and common processes such as injection molding and machining. - **Analysis:** Working knowledge of mechanics of materials and engineering hand calculations to size parts and validate designs. - **Soft Skills:** Ownership and self-drive. You get things done with minimal supervision, communicate clearly in writing, and are comfortable wearing multiple hats on a small team. - **Location:** Able to work on-site in Austin, TX. ### Preferred Qualifications - **Production Experience:** Has taken injection-molded parts from design through tooling and into mass production, including vendor and supplier management. - **Simulation:** FEA with ANSYS, Abaqus or SolidWorks Simulation (structural, fatigue, vibration, drop/impact), and mechanism or dynamics simulation in MATLAB/Simulink/Simscape. - **Lightweighting:** Weight and topology optimization for compact, high-load structures. - **Robotics & Mechatronics:** Experience integrating motors, gearboxes, sensors, batteries and microcontrollers into electromechanical systems; ROS familiarity is a plus. - **Wearables & Consumer Products:** Experience with wearables, footwear, sporting goods, micromobility or other high-volume consumer hardware. - **Reliability Engineering:** DFMEA, accelerated life testing, ingress protection (IP) and drop testing. - **Early-Stage Ownership:** Owned a product's mechanical design end to end at a startup or small team. ## Benefits - Competitive salary and participation in our Employee Options program - 401(k) retirement plan - Medical, dental and vision insurance - Flexible vacation, sick time and paid holidays - A collaborative, fast-moving engineering team and a casual work environment - The chance to shape the future of personal mobility ## Apply [Apply at Shift Robotics](https://apply.workable.com/shift-robotics/j/9835A663C0/apply) --- Powered by [Workable](https://www.workable.com)