Mechanical Engineering Manager

Description

Whisker is redefining what it means to live with cats—designing intelligent systems that remove friction, elevate the everyday, and celebrate the quiet brilliance of feline companionship. Today, Litter-Robot leads the category. Tomorrow, an entire ecosystem that expands what’s possible for cats and the people who love them. We believe the future is feline. And we’re imagining that future today.

We work onsite 4+ days a week, with our team based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and Juneau, Wisconsin. Our team of 700+ passionate pet people thrives on collaboration, innovation, and the occasional office cameo from a four-legged friend.

Whisker is seeking a Mechanical Engineering Manager to lead the team behind our innovative pet products. In this role, you’ll guide a talented group of mechanical engineers through every stage of development, from concept and prototyping to testing and production, while setting the design standards that keep our products reliable, manufacturable, and built to last. You’ll partner closely with industrial design, electrical engineering, manufacturing, and product management, and invest in your team’s growth through coaching and development.

If you’re an experienced engineering leader who thrives on solving complex challenges (and doesn’t mind a friendly feline or two around the office), we’d love to meet you.

This list of duties and responsibilities is not all-inclusive and may be expanded to include other duties and responsibilities as deemed necessary.

• Leads mechanical engineering from concept and architecture through prototyping, engineering validation, design validation, production validation, and launch.
• Defines mechanical design strategies and measurable requirements; guides tradeoffs among performance, reliability, cost, schedule, and industrial design intent.
• Sets clear team goals and accountability, coaches engineers, and escalates risks with recommended actions and recovery plans.
• Partners with industrial design, electrical engineering, firmware, manufacturing, quality, and product management to resolve system interfaces and integration issues.
• Ensures robust designs for molded plastics, electronics packaging, and motor-driven mechanisms; reviews materials, processes, tolerances, and assembly methods.
• Plans mechanical engineering staffing, skills, and external support; prioritizes work across programs and communicates resource gaps and schedule impacts.
• Drives root-cause analysis of development, production, and field issues; verifies corrective actions and incorporates lessons into future designs.
• Leads technical reviews, first-principles analysis, tolerance analysis, and design failure mode and effects analysis (DFMEA) to identify and retire risks early.
• Partners with test and reliability teams to define mechanical verification plans, review results, and close issues before tooling release and production.
• Uses benchmarking, prototypes, and experiments to evaluate concepts and improve performance, cost, and customer experience.
• Partners with suppliers and manufacturing to review tooling, support development builds, and resolve assembly, yield, and production readiness issues.
• Owns mechanical part and tooling cost targets within approved budgets; evaluates cost reduction opportunities without compromising product requirements.
• Ensures CAD, drawings, bills of materials, and engineering changes are complete, reviewed, and controlled through PDM and PLM workflows.
• Performs additional responsibilities as required.

Directly supervises mechanical engineers and, where assigned, engineering leads or managers. Responsibilities include hiring, onboarding, setting expectations, assigning…