Senior Softgoods Digital Design Engineer

1X • San Carlos, CA

12d • $175,000 - $215,000 • Onsite

About The Position

1X is building humanoid robots, including NEO, a general-purpose robot designed to work alongside people in real-world settings. The Softgoods team combines rigid and soft materials, textiles, elastomers, and foams to create safe, welcoming products, carrying work from concept and prototyping through mass production.

The Senior Softgoods Digital Design Engineer is the senior surface modeler on the Softgoods team, translating industrial design intent into production-grade digital geometry for NEO’s softgoods and touch-facing components. Working primarily in Autodesk Alias, the engineer develops A-, B-, and Class-A surfaces for soft covers, trims, foams, and molded elastomers. The role bridges industrial design and engineering, translating sketches, clay models, and scan data into precise, manufacturable geometry and carrying that geometry through tooling release and mass production.

Surfaces must integrate functionally with adjacent parts and account for NEO’s joints, range of motion, sensors, thermal paths, and serviceability. The resulting geometry serves as the source data for patterns, molds, fixtures, and parts. This is a fully on-site role in San Carlos, with close collaboration and reviews against physical prototypes and materials.

Requirements

• At least 7 years of professional Class-A surface modeling in Alias and/or ICEM Surf.
• Demonstrated track record of shipping production surfaces in consumer products, automotive, footwear, or another high-finish industry.
• Portfolio showcasing professional surfacing work, personal projects, and passion projects; highlight or zebra renders are encouraged.
• Ability to work fully on-site in San Carlos.
• Expert-level fluency in Autodesk Alias and production-quality surfacing, including controlled curvature, clean highlights, and G2/G3 continuity verified through zebra, highlight, and curvature analysis.
• Strong form, proportion, and reflection judgment; ability to interpret sketches or clay models and preserve their character through engineering changes.
• Understanding of manufacturing processes and tooling, including draft, parting lines, tooling splits, shrink, and the behavior of soft materials such as foams, elastomers, and textiles.
• Ability to move geometry between Alias and parametric CAD, scan data, and complex lattice-structure tools while maintaining organized, downstream-ready models.
• Ability to collaborate across industrial design, softgoods and mechanical engineering, and tooling, providing clear feasibility feedback while preserving design intent.

Nice To Haves

• Experience designing complex lattice structures and conforming them to Class-A surfaces for additively manufactured soft and rigid parts.
• Experience with 3D scanning and reverse-engineering workflows, such as Geomagic or PolyWorks.
• Familiarity with visualization tools such as VRED, KeyShot, or Blender for design reviews.
• Experience creating accurate color and texture/bump maps to visualize materials such as knits, leathers, foams, and elastomers.
• Familiarity with mold design, tooling, and GD&T for molded and over-molded parts.

Responsibilities

• Own Class-A surface development for NEO softgoods and touch-facing components, delivering G2/G3-continuous, highlight-clean surfaces that match design intent and are released on schedule.
• Integrate surfaces with adjacent rigid and soft parts, maintaining consistent gaps and flush, continuous transitions while providing clearance for articulation, sensors, cooling, and service access throughout the robot’s range of motion.
• Translate industrial design concepts, sketches, clay models, and 3D scan data into precise digital models, maintaining design fidelity from concept through tooling release.
• Develop manufacturing-feasible surfaces, accounting for draft, parting lines, shut-offs, wall thickness, and material behavior for molded foams, elastomers, and textile-wrapped parts.
• Deliver organized, downstream-ready digital data to engineering, tooling partners, and vendors; own handoffs from Alias into parametric CAD and complex lattice structures.
• Establish digital surfacing standards, quality checks, modeling workflows, and data structure, and raise the surfacing skills of colleagues.
• Collaborate with industrial designers, softgoods and mechanical engineers, and tooling partners, communicating feasibility while protecting design intent.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Generous paid time off, company holidays, and parental leave.
• 401(k) plan with company match: 100% on the first 3% of contributions and 50% on the next 2%.
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Health Savings Accounts (HSA) options.
• Commuter benefits for transit and parking.
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance and life insurance.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental health, financial, and personal support.
• Onsite snacks and catered lunches.
• Equity.

What This Job Offers

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