Senior Mechanical Engineer

Shift Robotics

Austin, United States
On-site
Posted 30 Oct 2026

# Senior Mechanical Engineer

> Shift Robotics · Austin, United States · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-30

**Salary:** USD 90,000–150,000

**Workplace:** on_site

## Description

We are making the world a more walkable place. Through intuitive personal mobility, we make walking faster, more efficient, and more accessible, empowering people to choose walking over sitting in traffic.

Our flagship product, **Moonwalkers**, are the world's fastest robotic shoes, augmenting natural walking with intelligent locomotion assistance. By giving people the ability to Moonwalk, we believe the path toward a more human-scale future can be reached on your own two feet.

We are covered in [Time](https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2023/6324451/moonwalker-electric-shoe-skates/), [Wired](https://www.wired.com/video/watch/on-the-go-moonwalkers), [New Atlas](https://newatlas.com/urban-transport/shift-robotics-moonwalkers-dusk/), [CNET](https://www.cnet.com/culture/fashion/worlds-fastest-shoes-vow-to-get-you-walking-as-quickly-as-you-run/), [Gizomodo](https://gizmodo.com/moonwalkers-shoes-increase-walking-speed-kickstarter-1849704064), [PCMag](https://www.pcmag.com/news/shift-robotics-used-ai-to-create-the-worlds-fastest-shoes) and many other tech press.

As a Mechanical Engineer at Shift, you will own the mechanical design of the next generation of Moonwalkers, from first sketch and prototype through tooling and mass production.

Our product is a wearable robot: motors, gearing, batteries, sensors and electronics packed into a shoe that a person stands, walks and climbs stairs on every day. The mechanical design has to be light, compact, comfortable and tough enough to survive real-world impact, water and wear.

You'll work in a small team alongside electrical, firmware and gait-control engineers, and you'll move fast between CAD, the shop and the test bench.

## Responsibilities

**Product Design:** Design mechanical systems for wearable robotic footwear, including housings, drivetrains, gearing, wheel and suspension assemblies, battery enclosures and binding/fit components.
**Mechatronic Packaging:** Package motors, sensors, PCBAs, batteries and wiring into a compact, lightweight structure. Work with electrical and firmware engineers on thermal, sealing, connector and cable-routing decisions.
**Prototyping & Fabrication:** Build fast prototypes with 3D printing, CNC and machining. Assemble, test and iterate hardware hands-on in our Austin lab.
**Analysis & Validation:** Run tolerance stack-ups and FEA (structural, fatigue, vibration, drop/impact). Write and execute test plans for durability, water ingress and user-load cases, and turn results into design changes.
**Design for Manufacturing:** Design injection-molded, die-cast and machined parts with DFM/DFA in mind. Release production drawings with GD&T (ASME Y14.5) and manage BOMs and engineering change orders.
**Supplier & Production Support:** Work with vendors and contract manufacturers on tooling, first-article inspection, yield and quality issues through EVT, DVT and PVT.
**Safety & Reliability:** A person is wearing the product. Design with safety margins, run failure analysis (DFMEA, root cause) and drive fixes from field returns and test failures.
**Documentation:** Keep CAD, drawings, specs and test reports clean and current so the team can build on your work.

## Requirements

**Education & Experience:** Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field (or equivalent experience), with **3+ years** designing hardware products that reached real users or production.
**CAD:** Strong production-grade CAD skills in SolidWorks, Siemens NX, Fusion 360, Creo or CATIA, including large assemblies and surfacing.
**Drawings & Tolerancing:** Ability to create engineering drawings with GD&T (ASME Y14.5) and run tolerance analysis.
**Prototyping:** Hands-on fabrication experience with 3D printing, CNC and machining, and comfort with shop tools and test fixtures.
**DFM/DFA:** Solid understanding of design for manufacturing and assembly, materials selection and common processes such as injection molding and machining.
**Analysis:** Working knowledge of mechanics of materials and engineering hand calculations to size parts and validate designs.
**Soft Skills:** Ownership and self-drive. You get things done with minimal supervision, communicate clearly in writing, and are comfortable wearing multiple hats on a small team.
**Location:** Able to work on-site in Austin, TX.

###
Preferred Qualifications

**Production Experience:** Has taken injection-molded parts from design through tooling and into mass production, including vendor and supplier management.
**Simulation:** FEA with ANSYS, Abaqus or SolidWorks Simulation (structural, fatigue, vibration, drop/impact), and mechanism or dynamics simulation in MATLAB/Simulink/Simscape.
**Lightweighting:** Weight and topology optimization for compact, high-load structures.
**Robotics & Mechatronics:** Experience integrating motors, gearboxes, sensors, batteries and microcontrollers into electromechanical systems; ROS familiarity is a plus.
**Wearables & Consumer Products:** Experience with wearables, footwear, sporting goods, micromobility or other high-volume consumer hardware.
**Reliability Engineering:** DFMEA, accelerated life testing, ingress protection (IP) and drop testing.
**Early-Stage Ownership:** Owned a product's mechanical design end to end at a startup or small team.

## Benefits

Competitive salary and participation in our Employee Options program
401(k) retirement plan
Medical, dental and vision insurance
Flexible vacation, sick time and paid holidays
A collaborative, fast-moving engineering team and a casual work environment
The chance to shape the future of personal mobility

## Apply

[Apply at Shift Robotics](https://apply.workable.com/shift-robotics/j/9835A663C0/apply)