Principal Mechanical Engineer
About The Position
Aescape is a New York-based physical AI and robotics company redefining human recovery through intelligent, precision bodywork, elevating it into a consistent, outcomes-driven practice. Powered by real-time body mapping, advanced robotics, and proprietary software, Aescape delivers deeply personalized bodywork that continuously adapts to the individual. This creates a superior way for members to move with greater ease, recover more efficiently, and optimize how they feel every single day. Aescape is building a defining brand for recovery, shifting behavior from a sporadic experience into a progressive, measurable routine, unlocking compounding benefits that build lasting resilience and laying the groundwork for an entirely new category of proactive human health and performance. Aescape powers recovery across leading fitness, hospitality, and wellness environments, including Equinox, Life Time, Marriott, Hilton, Four Seasons, Pause Studios, and Remedy Place, and is backed by Valor Equity Partners, BroadLight Capital, and Mecha Ventures. Aescape is looking for a Principal Mechanical Engineer to be the technical lead for our mechanical engineering domain. You will own the mechanical master model and drive system-level integration across the robot, making sure actuators, drivetrain, structure, and adjacent mechanisms work as a single system. This is a hands-on principal IC role on a small, senior hardware team: you will lead design, analysis, cost reduction, prototyping, and validation, set the design methodology the rest of the team works to, and partner directly with our contract manufacturer and key suppliers to take designs into production. You will work closely with Electrical, Firmware, Controls, and Operations, and you will ship hardware that real people experience with their bodies. If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you!
Requirements
- BS in Mechanical Engineering (MS preferred) with 10+ years of mechanical engineering experience, including significant work on actuators, drivetrains, or complex motorized mechanical assemblies for human-interaction or safety-relevant products (robotics, medical devices, industrial automation, automotive, or similar).
- A track record of owning mechanical architecture and system-level integration across subsystems.
- Expert in SolidWorks, with strong FEA, kinematics, dynamics, GD&T, and tolerance analysis.
- Deep knowledge of manufacturing processes including sheet metal, welding, casting, CNC machining, injection molding, and assembly, with direct experience working with contract manufacturers and key suppliers through EVT, DVT, PVT, and into mass production.
- A proven history of successful cost-down initiatives and identifying hidden cost drivers, with proficiency in cost estimation tools such as should-cost modeling.
- You prototype, instrument, characterize, and test your own work, and you are comfortable in the lab and on the factory floor.
- Comfortable working with Electrical, Firmware, and Controls engineers, with an understanding of mechanical design as part of a larger electromechanical system.
- You raise the bar of a team through technical reviews, written architectural guidance, and mentorship.
- You make good calls on tradeoffs with limited data, know when to test and when to decide, and avoid analysis paralysis.
- High standards for how the machine looks, sounds, and feels.
- Comfortable with ambiguity and able to pivot as priorities shift in a fast-moving startup; willing to take on work outside your core role when required.
Nice To Haves
- MS preferred
Responsibilities
- Own the mechanical master model and drive system-level integration across the platform, ensuring actuators, drivetrain, structure, and adjacent mechanisms come together as one coherent machine.
- Make the architecture-level tradeoffs: cost, weight, acoustics, reliability, and perceived quality.
- Lead design, analysis, prototyping, and validation of mechanical subsystems across our deployed fleet and next-generation platforms.
- Build and test your own prototypes, and drive design decisions from test data and physics.
- Set the design methodology and best practices for the mechanical engineering domain: CAD standards, FEA and tolerance rigor, and how design decisions get justified.
- Raise the technical bar through CAD reviews, design reviews, architectural guidance, and mentorship of other mechanical engineers and contractors.
- Identify and engineer out hidden costs in design, materials, and manufacturing through strategic changes and design simplification.
- Refine designs for manufacturability, create and optimize tooling and fixtures, and analyze and improve assembly processes for cost and quality.
- Work directly with our supply chain team, contract manufacturer, and key suppliers on manufacturability and supplier selection, leading prototype builds through NPI and into production.
- Produce the technical documentation for production transfer: CAD, BOMs, drawings, and cost reports.
- Partner with Electrical, Firmware, and Controls on motor selection, drivers, sensors, and force-controlled tuning, and with Operations and Quality on reliability, test, and production readiness.
- Contribute the mechanical point of view to Aescape's overall technology roadmap, researching and evaluating options in actuation, transmissions, sensing, and structure for future cost and performance improvements across the product lineup.
- Travel as needed for supplier and CM engagements, including international travel.
Benefits
- 100% employer-paid healthcare coverage for employees with generous coverage for eligible dependents
- Flexible time off
- Quarterly Wellness Days
- Generous parental leave
- Complimentary OneMedical membership
- 401(k) with employer matching
- Home office budget
- Annual stipend for professional development
- Dinner is on us when working late
- Complimentary Aescape recovery sessions for yourself, friends & family
- Discretionary annual bonus
- Equity grant commensurate with the role and company stage
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Paid time off
- Paid parental leave
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
