Mechanical Engineer

About Tau

Power conversion is the bottleneck between the compute, energy, and mobility industries and the future they're trying to build. Most of the industry is still solving it with decades-old approaches. Tau is fixing that. We're a venture-backed hardtech company in Redwood City, building power conversion technology for data centers, EVs, and energy systems. Several products are already moving into production.

Power conversion is the bottleneck between the compute, energy, and mobility industries and the future they're trying to build. Most of the industry is still solving it with decades-old approaches. Tau is fixing that. We're a venture-backed hardtech company in Redwood City, building power conversion technology for data centers, EVs, and energy systems. Several products are already moving into production.

We hire people who own problems end-to-end: power electronics, embedded software, controls, test and validation, mechanical design. We solve from first principles, not legacy playbooks. We're past "promising technology." Customers are buying, volume is coming, and the people who join now set the standard everyone builds on after.

Who you are

You're practical, not precious about your own ideas. You'll defend a design decision with data, and drop it just as fast when better data shows up.

You understand that automotive standards aren't a formality. Qualification, reliability, and durability requirements exist because failure in the field is expensive and dangerous, and you treat them as real constraints, not check boxes to satisfy on the way to the interesting part.

You communicate problems before they become surprises. If a program is off track, you say so immediately with enough details that someone can act on it. Silence is the failure mode here, not an honest "this is behind".

Our Engineering Approach

Innovation shows what's possible. Disciplined engineering creates products. Creative ideas matter only when they become reliable, manufacturable products that solve customer problems.

Think in systems. Optimize the product before the subsystem. Make tradeoffs that improve the complete system.

Engineering judgment matters. Apply the rigor the risk requires. Decide when enough evidence exists—and change course when better evidence emerges.

Design for reality. Design for manufacturing, validation, reliability, serviceability, safety, and cost from the beginning.

Raise the standard. Leave the products, engineering systems, and people around you better than you found them.

About The Role

This role is about taking mechanical designs to automotive‑grade production. The bar is qualification: will this pass, will it hold up over the life of the vehicle, will it manufacture repeatably  schedule is real, and so are the consequences of missing it.

You'll understand the spec, including automotive qualification requirements, deliver against it, and say something the moment it's  a design won't hold up under vibration testing, or a supplier is slipping, we want to know at week one, not week six.

Good design and fast delivery aren't in tension here. We just don't reward cleverness that doesn't serve the spec. You'll have real input into design decisions and pushback rights when a spec seems wrong; this isn't execution-only. But if you'd rather defend your own solution than hit what the program actually needs, this isn't your seat.

We're open to a range of seniority, including someone who could eventually run the team. Seniority isn't the bar. Competence is: do you consistently deliver what you said you would, communicate clearly the moment you can't, and stay focused on what the program needs over what's interesting to you personally.

Areas of ownership

• Lead mechanical integration of electric machines and powertrain hardware: rotors, stators, housings, shafts, bearings, cooling systems, structures, enclosures, interfaces
• Weigh in on design decisions and specs, not just execute against them
• Produce clear models, drawings, and specifications that others can build from without guessing

Analysis and validation

• Own DVP/DVP&R that connects requirements, including automotive qualification requirements, to actual…