Mechanical Engineer

About Kovari
Kovari develops frontier technology to transform physical businesses. We partner with established operators to change how they run, and we build and operate businesses of our own through our subsidiaries.

We are a small team of builders, operators, and researchers. We deploy on site, alongside the businesses we serve, and iterate in the field. We have raised over $6M from leading investors.

We are based in San Francisco and work in person.

The Role
You will own the mechanical design of our robots, from actuator selection and structure to drivetrain, linkages, and field-ready assembly. You design it, machine it, assemble it, and fix it on robots running in live operations.

This is not a bench role. Your designs face real constraints: variable floors, tight corridors, elevator transitions, and duty cycles that push hardware hard.

What You'll Do

• Design mechanical systems: drivetrain, structure, actuation, linkages, enclosures
• Select and integrate motors, gearboxes, bearings, and actuators
• Run load, stress, and tolerance analysis to size parts and predict failure
• Build prototypes in our in-house shop (mill, lathe, welding, 3D printing, laser cutting)
• Design for manufacturing, serviceability, and field reliability
• Debug mechanical failures on deployed robots and drive fixes back into the design
• Manage vendors for machined, sheet metal, and molded parts

What You Bring

• Strong mechanical fundamentals: material selection, GD&T, tolerance analysis, DFM
• Experience designing actuated or mobile mechanisms
• CAD fluency in SolidWorks, Fusion, or Onshape
• Hands-on fabrication: you've run a mill and lathe, bent sheet metal, and welded
• Bonus: FIRST, FSAE, combat robotics, or similar build teams
• A portfolio of things you've built on your own time
• Bias toward action: prototype fast, test early, fix what breaks

Values

• Pace of learning trumps everything.
• Relentless refinement of our craft.
• Low ego, high ownership.
• All-in on the mission. We work in person, and this isn't a 9-to-5.