Mechanical Engineer

p!ng's building the fastest autonomous coffee drive-thru in the galaxy — combining robotics, AI, and radically better customer experience into a new kind of micro-retail platform. p!ng's compact pod is designed to eliminate waiting in line. Customers order ahead, drive up, and receive custom, delicious beverages in under a minute. No scanning, no tipping, no hassle.

We're reinventing the pick up experience from the ground up, using robotics and a first-principles approach to deliver quality, consistency, and speed at a scale no human-run chain could match. Our first autonomous site is live in Hudson, NH. Customer testing is underway with a full launch later this year. We're in our early stages, deploying pods and refining operations with the obsessiveness of a startup and the ambition of a category-defining company.

This isn't a seat at an established table. It's a chance to build the table as we take on one of the biggest habits in America.

Our tech is cool, and we've been recognized by The Robot Report as one of the top 100 robotic startups in the world to watch. But the tech is the means, not the end. Everything we build exists in service of one thing: making the everyday lives of our customers better and more convenient. That's the mission.

You'll be our first mechanical engineer
. We've built a working v1, a robotic system that makes real customized beverages today, and now we want to take it to the next level. Faster, more reliable, cheaper to build, and ready to scale beyond one location. You’ll own that transformation from the drink-making robotics to height-adjusting presentation windows.

Some of it you’ll redesign from scratch; some of it you’ll harden and refine. Either way, you’ll own projects end to end: problem → CAD → prototype → test → iterate → production-ready hardware in the field. When something breaks at 7am during the morning rush, you’ll be the person who figures out why and makes sure it never breaks that way again.

Own the core mechanical systems of our robotic coffee platform
: motion systems, fluid handling, dispensing, thermal management, enclosures and level them up for speed, reliability, and manufacturability

Reliability and throughput: identify failure modes, design tests, analyze root causes, and improve cycle time and uptime.

Rapid development: translate imperfect information into CAD, prototypes, experiments, and decisions… we track work in days, not months.

Production readiness: select components, create drawings and tolerances, design for manufacturing and assembly, and reduce cost and complexity, working with vendors and fabrication partners

Field performance: support the live system, diagnose failures quickly, and turn one-off fixes into durable design improvements.

Cross-functional integration: work closely with software and electrical engineering so sensors, actuators, controls, and mechanical systems operate as one machine.

Mechanical engineering foundations: establish practical processes, documentation, testing, design-review, and release standards for the team that follows you.

Have strong fundamentals in mechanical design, mechanisms, materials, tolerancing, and design for manufacturing.

Have taken real hardware from concept or rough prototype through testing, iteration, and use by customers or operators.

Know the difference between a compelling demo and a machine that must run hundreds or thousands of cycles with minimal intervention.

Are comfortable building and debugging with your hands (not only designing at a desk) and can use prototyping and shop tools safely.

Make sound tradeoffs with incomplete information, communicate them clearly, and finish what you start.

Prefer simple, serviceable…