Mechanical Design Engineer

The Mission

GRAM is a self-replication company creating machine labor for the physical economy.

Our first research frontier is self-preservation: the base case of physical self-replication. We are building a new class of machines called insectoids that can survive, coordinate, and recover without humans. We believe scalable machine labor requires more than single-agent task generality or machines shaped in our image.

About the role

You will design the structures and mechanisms that carry insectoid loads and protect critical systems. You will move from first-principles sizing through detailed CAD, drawings, prototype hardware, instrumented test, and released revisions across lightweight structures, joints, housings, covers, routing, interfaces, and mechanisms.

You will own the structural, alignment, environmental, thermal-packaging, routing, and service integration of machine subsystems, including the physical interfaces for actuator modules. The work demands explicit load cases and margins proved on physical hardware.

What you will do

• Turn robot motion, contact, transport, service, and fault cases into free-body diagrams, load cases, structural requirements, margins, and verification plans.

• Select and mechanically integrate actuators; design load-bearing body structures, joints and mechanisms, sensor and compute mounts, environmental enclosures, protective elements, and cable or hose routing.

• Produce release-quality 3D CAD, assemblies, drawings, GD&T, tolerance stacks, material and process specifications, and bills of materials.

• Use hand calculations and FEA to evaluate stress, stiffness, buckling, fatigue, vibration, impact, fastener behavior, and thermal distortion.

• Build and instrument prototypes; correlate strain, displacement, load, modal, impact, and cycle-life measurements with predictions.

• Investigate cracks, yielding, loosening, wear, fretting, misalignment, ingress, and assembly discrepancies, then carry corrections through verified retest.

Minimum qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, aerospace, or a related engineering field, or equivalent practical experience.

• Released complex mechanical parts and assemblies in a major CAD system such as NX, CATIA, Creo, or SolidWorks, including drawings and ASME Y14.5 GD&T.

• Generated and released calculations for the governing structural failure modes and tolerance stack of hardware subsequently fabricated and tested.

• Took a complex mechanical assembly from CAD and drawings through fabrication, inspection, assembly, and instrumented test, resolving an as-built tolerance or process failure.

• Produced measured structural or mechanism test data and used it to resolve a fracture, deformation, fatigue, vibration, wear, or tolerance-driven failure through verified redesign.

Preferred experience

• Lightweight robotic, aerospace, automotive, or industrial mechanisms operating under dynamic and repeated loads.

• Nonlinear or dynamic FEA, modal testing, fracture mechanics, tribology, sealing, or environmental protection.

• Design for assembly, supplier technical review, inspection planning, or prototype-to-production transfer.

Compensation

The annual base salary range for this El Segundo position is $150,000–$185,000. An offer within this range will reflect the position's approved scope and the candidate's demonstrated role-relevant skills and experience.

Working at GRAM

This role is based on-site in El Segundo. You will work through fabrication, assembly, and test, inspect failed parts, modify hardware, and defend design margins with calculations and measured data.

Interview Process

After submitting your application, we review your portfolio and any exceptional work you've shipped. If your application demonstrates the caliber we seek, you'll enter our interview process, which is designed for speed and substance. We aim to complete it within one week from start to finish.

Trust in the Process

GRAM expects deep trust and ownership from its people, and we begin by extending the same to candidates. We treat your information, prior work, and conversations with discretion.