Senior Mechanical Engineer

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.

As a Senior Mechanical Engineer, you will own mechanical subsystems of our robots end to end, from concept through production, including actuator selection and structure to drivetrain, linkages, and field-ready assembly. You make architecture and design tradeoffs, 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.

Own mechanical architecture and subsystem design from concept through production: drivetrain, structure, actuation, linkages, enclosures

Select and integrate motors, gearboxes, bearings, and actuators, making tradeoffs across performance, reliability, cost, and manufacturability

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, assembly, serviceability, and field reliability, working closely with vendors and manufacturers

Debug mechanical failures on deployed robots and drive fixes back into the design

Mentor junior engineers and manage vendors for machined, sheet metal, and molded parts

5+ years of relevant industry experience designing and shipping hardware

Strong mechanical fundamentals: material selection, GD&T, tolerance analysis, DFM

Track record owning actuated or mobile mechanisms from concept through production

CAD fluency in SolidWorks, Fusion, or Onshape

Hands-on fabrication: you've run a mill and lathe, bent sheet metal, and welded

Experience making architecture and design tradeoffs, mentoring junior engineers, and working with manufacturers

A track record of hardware you've shipped and a portfolio of things you've built on your own time

Bias toward action: prototype fast, test early, fix what breaks

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.