Senior Softgoods Digital Design Engineer

1X • San Carlos, CA

1d • $175,000 - $215,000 • Onsite

About The Position

1X is hiring a Senior Softgoods Digital Design Engineer for its Softgoods team, which develops touch-facing products using rigid and soft materials, textiles, elastomers, and foams. The role is fully on-site in San Carlos and focuses on translating industrial design intent into production-grade digital geometry for NEO, 1X’s general-purpose humanoid robot.

Working primarily in Autodesk Alias, the engineer will create high-quality A-Surface, B-Surface, and Class-A geometry for soft covers, trims, foams, and molded elastomers. The position sits between industrial design and engineering, turning sketches, clay models, and scan data into precise, manufacturable surfaces and carrying that geometry through tooling release and mass production. Surfaces must integrate with adjacent parts and accommodate the robot’s joints, range of motion, sensors, thermal paths, and serviceability. The resulting geometry serves as the source data for patterns, molds, fixtures, and parts.

The successful candidate will own surface quality and design fidelity, support manufacturing feasibility, deliver downstream-ready data to engineering and vendors, and help establish the team’s digital surfacing standards. Compensation is $175,000–$215,000 plus equity.

Requirements

• At least 7 years of professional Class-A surface modeling experience in Alias and/or ICEM Surf.
• A track record of shipping production surfaces in consumer products, automotive, footwear, or another high-finish industry.
• A 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.
• Senior-level fluency in Autodesk Alias and production-quality surfacing, including controlled curvature, clean highlights, and G2/G3 continuity verified with zebra, highlight, and curvature analysis.
• Strong design-intent fidelity, including the ability to interpret sketches or clay models and preserve form and character through engineering changes.
• Understanding of how surfaces become tools and parts, including draft, parting lines, tooling splits, and shrink, as well as how foams, elastomers, and textiles stretch, compress, and wrap over rigid structures.
• Ability to move and organize geometry between Alias and parametric CAD, scan data, and complex lattice structure tools for downstream use.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with industrial designers, engineers, and tooling partners.

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 meet release schedules.
• Integrate Class-A surfaces with NEO and adjacent rigid and soft parts, maintaining consistent gaps and flush 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 initial concept through tooling release.
• Drive manufacturing feasibility by accounting for draft, parting lines, shut-offs, wall thickness, and material behavior in molded foams, elastomers, and textile-wrapped parts.
• Deliver clean, well-structured digital data to engineering, tooling partners, and vendors; own the handoff from Alias into parametric CAD and complex lattice structures.
• Establish digital surfacing standards, including quality checks, modeling workflows, and data structures, and raise the surfacing skills of colleagues.
• Collaborate with industrial designers, softgoods and mechanical engineers, and tooling partners, providing feasibility feedback while protecting design intent.
• Review surfaces against physical prototypes and materials in a collaborative, on-site environment.

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 Account (FSA) and Health Savings Account (HSA) options.
• Commuter benefits for transit and parking.
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance and life insurance.
• Employee Assistance Program 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