Principal Robotics Hardware Engineer
Principal-level robotics hardware engineer at Telexistence who owns the hardest, undefined technical problems in robot development: defining and solving issues across mechanical, electrical, and software disciplines, leading robot system design from prototyping through sustained operation, mentoring engineers, and doing hands-on 3D CAD, assembly, and experiments.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Japan
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Principal
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 7+ years
- Category
- Hardware
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 7+ years hands-on experience making design decisions combining mechanisms, drive systems, materials, strength/stiffness, and tolerancing with quantitative analysis and validation on physical hardware
- Ability to design with 3D CAD, create drawings, design for manufacturing and assembly, and personally carry out assembly, evaluation, and failure analysis
- Understanding of constraints around sensors, actuators, electrical components, wiring, and thermal management; ability to discuss system-level issues with electrical, controls, and software engineers
- Extensive hands-on experience developing robots, mechatronic systems, or complex mechanical equipment, from concept through evaluation on physical hardware
- Track record of solving technical problems with no precedent by forming hypotheses and validating them through prototyping and experiments
- Experience leading technical problems spanning multiple disciplines and contributing to other engineers' results via design reviews and technical guidance
- Ability to turn unknowns and failures into concrete validation tasks and persist until solved
- Ability to work across needed areas anchored in own expertise, incorporating other specialists' insights and updating hypotheses/designs from experimental results
- Willingness to take responsibility for the whole robot actually working
- Ability to hold technical discussions and negotiations with domestic and international suppliers, and drive internal technical discussions and collaboration in English
Nice to have
- Component-level design and development experience with end effectors, actuators, or robot arms
- Experience designing and implementing Leader devices, including mechanisms capturing operator hand/arm motion, operation-assist mechanisms, and operator interfaces
- Experience designing and implementing Follower-side robot hands, including evaluating mechanism, drive, and sensor configurations and grasping/manipulation performance
- Experience integrating Leader–Follower teleoperation systems, including motion mapping, position/force measurement, calibration, and haptics
- Experience developing physical hardware and data collection systems for imitation learning or reinforcement learning, or collaborating with learning/ML teams
- Experience with force and tactile sensors, compliant mechanisms, and compact power transmission mechanisms
- Experience breaking down actuator requirements, calculating theoretical values, and selecting reducers, motors, encoders, and bearings
- Experience customizing components for overall optimization or developing/evaluating components such as reducers and motors
- Experience evaluating and improving actuator durability and cost, and negotiating with manufacturing/procurement partners
- Experience turning research-stage technology into equipment/products for ongoing use, solving unit-to-unit variation, calibration, and maintenance issues
- Experience taking a product from prototype to a production ramp-up of roughly 100–1,000 units
- Ability to work autonomously in a fast-paced, highly goal-oriented environment
Full description
In this role, you will take on challenges in TELEXISTENCE's robot development where the technical approach or feasibility is not yet clear, and drive them to resolution yourself. Grounded in robot hardware development, you will solve problems across all disciplines, not only from the mechanical, electrical, and software perspectives.
As a Principal, you are expected to own the full path to solving the problems that block development: defining what needs to be solved, building hypotheses from first principles, exploring approaches, prototyping and experimenting, and feeding the results into the design. Even when no established solution exists, you will find a path to realization through validation, and you will be responsible for delivering hardware that actually works and can be used on an ongoing basis.
You will also support engineers in each specialized area on the technical side, and lead both the resolution of critical issues that go beyond individual teams and the technical decision-making for the robot system as a whole. You will also do hands-on design, assembly, and experiments yourself.
Key Responsibilities
Solving technical problems with no clear path forward
-
For problems where the requirements, root causes, or solutions are unclear, define the target state and constraints, and separate known facts from unverified hypotheses.
-
Return to the underlying principles of mechanics, mechanisms, materials, manufacturing, and related fields to develop multiple candidate solutions. Plan experiments to validate the most critical and uncertain issues, and manage your own work as well as internal and external resources to carry out prototyping, measurement, and evaluation.
-
When an extension of the existing configuration will not work, explore alternatives with stakeholders, including revisiting the requirements, and lead changes to mechanisms, configurations, components, and manufacturing methods.
-
Own the entire process, from identifying problems and proposing direction to implementation, confirming effectiveness on the actual hardware, and preventing the root problem from recurring, so that the team can move on to the next stage of development.
System design and development for sustained operation
-
For existing robots, devices for collecting learning data, and other systems, decide the mechanical system architecture, key interfaces, and performance allocation. Work with electrical, controls, and software specialists to resolve design issues.
-
Reflect constraints from component sourcing, manufacturing, and assembly in design decisions, and own the technical side from prototyping through building the required number of units, evaluation, and ongoing operation.