Mechanical Engineer

Lightmill•San Francisco, CA

15d•Onsite

About The Position

Lightmill is building a new manufacturing process called large-format laser milling. We are scaling laser milling from micron-scale features to much larger metal parts, with the goal of making precision metal manufacturing more accessible, flexible, and affordable. We are an early-stage startup, which means the work is broad, hands-on, and high-impact. Everyone on the team wears multiple hats, moves quickly, and helps build both the technology and the company around it. We are looking for a mechanical engineer to work on the hardware architecture of our upcoming machine. This is a high-ownership role for someone who has designed complex electromechanical systems, made hard architectural tradeoffs, and taken hardware from concept through production.

Requirements

Strong mechanical engineering fundamentals and a track record of designing complex hardware systems.
Experience owning the architecture of a machine, instrument, robot, manufacturing system, industrial tool, or other precision electromechanical product.
Ability to reason at both the system level and the detailed component level.
Deep experience with CAD (Onshape preferred), mechanical design, prototyping, tolerance analysis, and design for manufacturability.
Comfort designing around motion, stiffness, vibration, thermal effects, precision alignment, serviceability, and safety
Experience working closely with electrical, controls, software, manufacturing, and process engineering teams.
Strong judgment around technical tradeoffs, sequencing, risk, and what needs to be validated experimentally.
BS degree in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent experience.
4+ years of hands-on design experience with complex electromechanical systems.

Nice To Haves

Experience with CNC machines, laser systems, robotics, industrial automation, semiconductor tools, additive manufacturing, metrology equipment, or precision motion systems.
Experience designing machines that involve optics, lasers, machine vision, dust/debris control, thermal management, or high-power process equipment.
Familiarity with linear motion systems, actuators, stages, encoders, sensors, fixturing, enclosures, interlocks, and safety systems.
Experience taking hardware from prototype to production.
Experience managing vendors, fabricators, contract manufacturers, or internal machine builds.

Responsibilities

Define major machine subsystems, interfaces, constraints, and tradeoffs.
Own system-level mechanical design decisions across structure, motion, fixturing, thermal behavior, service access, safety, and manufacturability.
Develop machine layouts, CAD assemblies, requirements, design reviews, and technical documentation.
Design and guide the development of precision electromechanical subsystems.
Work with controls and software engineers to ensure the mechanical architecture supports calibration, sensing, automation, and process control.
Work with process engineers to ensure the machine enables the required laser-material interaction, part access, debris management, and production workflow.
Build prototypes, run experiments, analyze failures, and drive rapid design iterations.
Select vendors, components, materials, and manufacturing processes where appropriate.
Establish engineering practices for design reviews, drawing releases, tolerance analysis, and hardware validation.