Mechatronics Engineer

Astera Institute • Emeryville, CA

1d • $180,000 - $280,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Astera Institute is a private foundation supporting ambitious work in science and technology through grants, investments, and in-house research. Its Robotics Lab is building a frontier robotics program investigating embodied intelligence through robots that perceive, navigate, manipulate objects, and use memory and reasoning to act in the physical world.

The Mechatronics Engineer will design and build the mechanisms, electronics, and sensing systems that robots use to interact with the world. The role takes hardware from concept and CAD through fabrication, board bring-up, integration, and testing on physical robots. Based in the Robotics Lab in Emeryville, California, the engineer will work closely with learning and control researchers on manipulators, dexterous hands, and humanoids, combining mechanical and electrical engineering with physical experimentation and hardware improvement.

Requirements

• Experience delivering complete electromechanical systems, with substantial personal responsibility for design, integration, and debugging.
• Strong CAD and mechanical design skills, including tolerancing, fabrication, assembly, and hands-on prototyping.
• Hands-on PCB experience from schematic capture and layout through board bring-up and troubleshooting.
• Practical knowledge of motors, encoders, sensor electronics, power distribution, and embedded interfaces.
• Python, C/C++, or microcontroller programming skills for hardware integration, testing, and data collection.
• A careful, measurement-driven approach to debugging and the ability to collaborate across hardware, controls, and machine learning.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with robot manipulators, dexterous hands, compliant mechanisms, or contact-rich manipulation.
• Experience with force/torque or tactile sensing, actuator characterization, and instrumented test fixtures.
• Experience iterating hardware based on control or learning experiments, and with AI-assisted engineering workflows.

Responsibilities

• Design and build robot mechanisms, including mechanisms, end-effectors, arm–hand interfaces, and experimental fixtures; create CAD assemblies, fabrication drawings, and working prototypes.
• Design and bring up PCBs for sensing, embedded interfaces, and power distribution, including component selection, schematic capture, layout, and board debugging.
• Integrate motors, drives, encoders, force/torque sensors, and tactile sensors with embedded firmware and robot control systems.
• Measure and troubleshoot backlash, compliance, friction, drift, latency, thermal behavior, and other effects that influence robot motion and manipulation.
• Collaborate with learning and control researchers to improve geometry, actuation, and sensor placement based on experiments with real robots.
• Build repeatable bench and robot tests, document design decisions, and maintain the CAD, PCB, firmware, and assembly files needed to reproduce and service hardware.
• Explore AI-assisted CAD scripting, firmware development, and test automation, with engineering review and physical validation.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Education Level: No Education Listed