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Senior Mechanical Engineer

Pivot Robotics · San Francisco

No salary listed. Estimated from 1377 salary-disclosed Engineering roles on this board: $200K–$300K (interquartile range; estimate, not the employer's figure).

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About the role
The role

We're looking for someone who already knows this problem. Not robotics in the abstract — the specific, gnarly reality of putting an abrasive against a metal part with a robot and getting a good result, repeatably, in a production environment. If you've wrestled with wheel wear, force control, fixturing that survives a foundry, cycle times that actually close a business case, and the thousand small failures between a clean demo and a cell that runs a shift unattended, you're who we want.

You'll shape how we build cells, what tooling we standardize on, and how we solve finishing problems we haven't seen yet.

What you'll do
  • Own the mechanical design of our grinding and finishing cells (end effectors, tool changers, force compliance, fixturing, dust and safety systems).

  • Solve real process problems: material removal, surface-finish targets, wheel and media selection, contact mechanics, cycle time.

  • Get on the floor, and have your designs constantly tested in production.

  • Set the standard for how we approach new parts and new customers mechanically.

What we're looking for
  • Direct experience with robotic grinding, deburring, or surface finishing. You've shipped or deeply worked on systems that drive a tool against a part.

  • Real grasp of the process, not just the mechanism: abrasives, contact forces, material removal, finish quality.

  • Comfort with force/torque control, compliance, and the sensing that makes finishing work (we run ATI sensors, Yaskawa and KUKA arms, Zivid vision).

  • Someone who thrives in the field and on the floor, not only in CAD.

  • The judgment to know what's good enough to ship and what isn't.

Nice to haves
  • Foundry, casting, or heavy-manufacturing exposure.

  • Experience taking a cell from prototype to running-a-shift-unattended.

  • Familiarity with industrial robot integration and machine safety systems.

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