Textile Engineer

Description

We’re a fashion company with technology in our veins.

Our mission is to reduce global carbon emissions by 1% through automated, localized, and intentional manufacturing for apparel.

unspun is a robotics and digital apparel company building custom jeans for each consumer, on-demand. Our mission is to reduce global carbon emissions by 1% through automated, localized, and intentional manufacturing.

Included in Time’s Best Inventions & Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, unspun aims to rapidly transition the trillion-dollar apparel world into one that is more intentional, inclusive, and efficient by focusing on the overlap between sustainability and profitability.

We’ve developed a proprietary and patent-pending technology at the crossroads of 3D printing and automated textile manufacturing. By skipping the flat 2D fabric stage, we can additively build custom apparel products from the ground up- straight from yarn to final product. If additive manufacturing, industrial automation, and synchronized systems of hundreds of sensors & actuators gets you excited, we’d love to talk!

You enjoy working on fast-paced and early-stage R&D and bringing high quality products to market. You thrive on the lack of clear answers at the outset of high-reaching projects and look forward to finding clarity and articulating it to others. You enjoy wearing multiple hats and switching between different contexts. You are capable of working independently and in a team while being flexible, self-motivated, and curious.

You have strong interpersonal skills and can help manage a complex testing program with competing needs from multiple sides of the organization. You are energized by working on big complex problems within an evolving R&D environment. You probably are a yarn and fabric nerd who gets excited around spec sheets. You enjoy daily challenges and relish the successes.

• Help lead 3D weaving material development along with our R&D Textile Engineer. You’ll be both hands‑on with the product outputs and theoretical with the inputs. You’ll work with the Product Team and the Hardware team to create the world’s first 3D woven products.
• Develop new product outputs using new manufacturing methods
• Oversee management and organization of in‑house material spec sheets
• Provide insights about machine performance and reliability, especially as it relates to product outputs
• Troubleshoot product challenges through experimentation using knowledge of all possible variables to achieve ideal material properties
• Operate revolutionary robotic loom to create apparel products and fabric swatches
• Source materials for small and large‑scale runs
• Work with material vendors and suppliers on testing and standards
• Conduct detailed analysis of weave quality and help brainstorm ways to iterate and improve
• Identify limitations of technical approaches and brainstorm new approaches
• Work with hardware engineering team to ideate and develop manufacturing technology
• Support the design, development, testing, and commercialization of our new weaving technology
• Interface with the team to understand testing and experiment needs, develop test plans, perform or coordinate tests, and analyze and communicate results
• Coordinate testing and new functionality integration activities with engineers and technicians
• Coordinate, plan, and execute product runs

• BS, MS, or PhD in Textile Engineering, Textile Technology, Fiber Science, Materials Science, or related fields
• Extensive experience with fabric development
• Strong knowledge of fiber and polymer science
• Experience sourcing for apparel and textile manufacturing, especially yarn
• Experience designing, conducting, and analyzing experiments
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Experience and comfort working with [ideally textile] machinery and robotics. This is not a small project, and candidate is expected to be on their feet for full days at a time.
• Open to working full time on‑site in Emeryville for testing and debugging.
• Energized by new ideas in apparel and product manufacturing. Comfortable in a fast‑paced early‑stage startup environment.…