Senior Mechanical Engineer

At Cargo, we’re backed by some of the best robotics investors in the Valley to transform a massive legacy industry and we’re more than doubling our engineering team to satisfy overwhelming customer demand. If you’re an exceptional mechanical engineer with a passion for robotics, we want to talk to you. See the JD and instructions on how to get in touch with us below.

Cargo Robotics is creating the logistics infrastructure of the next 100 years by automating the entire delivery chain with containerized physical AI, starting at the delivery van.

After taking jobs at UPS and Fed Ex, our founders realized that a new approach was needed. Delivery volumes have exploded 5x in the past decade, and the people and processes of parcel logistics are breaking under the load of trying to deliver this volume with a 1950’s network model. Today’s logistics has rampant injuries and attrition, nonstop errors and delays, and delivery drivers spending more time sorting packages than delivering.

Our first product is the X1 Robotic Cargo Bay which reimagines the guts of every delivery van you see on the road, and saves hours of labor per day for each vehicle. This is the first step in fully automating the delivery chain with radically more efficient networks that reduce carbon emissions and congestion to enable a more prosperous and healthy future.

We’re looking for an unstoppable and versatile mechanical engineer to play a central role on our hardware team, and own development of key robotic mechanical systems as we launch pilots for X1. You’ll rapidly iterate alongside our incredible founding team (alumni of Stanford, Georgia Tech, Caltech, Tesla, NASA JPL, Lockheed, Saildrone, Machina Labs, Roam Robotics and Stanford AI lab) and harden your designs to enable us to rapidly scale up and satisfy overwhelming demand from international carriers.

We’re a user and product-centric company, so expect to deliver some actual parcels in your first week at work!

Develop core mechanical subsystems through design, prototype, test, release, and coordination of initial and scaled manufacturing. This will include transmissions, actuated structures, end effectors, and user-facing mechanical systems integrating sensors, motors, mechanisms, and code.

Brainstorm novel solutions to solve customer problems, collaborate tightly with our other teams to identify dependencies, and ensure the product achieves its overall goals.

Use whiteboards, CAD, rapid prototyping, and elbow grease to design, test, and iterate.

Codify promising designs with detailed engineering analysis, functional requirements, and test plans, anticipating and eliminating failure modes before they occur.

Lead system pilot builds and drive transition to production with production-level documentation for manufacturing and assembly, international supplier visits and qualification, and refining your designs for high performance and reliability at low cost and weight.

Help recruit, manage, and mentor new team members and contractors as we grow. Work hard and ship fast modeling ownership, integrity, hands‑on building, and a production mindset.

Directly support and debug our pilots and customer deployments in the US and abroad, and tackle any and all mechanical and production issues on the way to 10’s, 100’s and 1000’s of X1 units in operating continuously.

• Biased toward action: take initiative and get stuff done
• Driven and gritty: can take punches and keep on going
• A quick study: learn fast and teach those around you
• Calm in chaos: keep your composure and work through the hurricane
• Self‑aware and low ego: take and give feedback with grace

• BS or higher in ME, 8+ years experience, 2+ in production environments
• Fluent in CAD (Solid Works preferred): complex assemblies, configurations, drawings
• Strong mechanical intuition and build skills crafting proof‑of‑concept prototypes
• Strong analytical capability with mechanical, structural, and pneumatic systems: statics and dynamics, FEA, hand calculations and computational methods (complex FBDs, tolerance analysis, process capability, vibration and fatigue analysis, FEA,…