Mechanical Engineer at simplehuman in Torrance, CA

Mechanical Engineer

Location: Torrance, California

Day to day life has room for improvement.

That was our basic thinking when we founded simplehuman in 2000. Our mission is to bring high-performance and sustainable innovation to basic but essential tasks in our daily routine at home. Through new technologies, meticulous engineering and an obsession for improvement, we find new and better ways to achieve basic but important daily tasks.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Mechanical Engineer who wants real ownership.

You will take consumer products from early concepts with Industrial Design through mechanical architecture, prototyping, validation, tooling, production launch, and post-launch failure analysis. You will not be limited to designing individual parts or executing someone else's specifications - you will be expected to understand the entire product, identify problems, make recommendations, and drive your projects forward.

We design objects people touch dozens of times a day, so the details decide everything: how a hinge feels, how a lid closes, whether a seam catches a fingernail. We move quickly, build often, test aggressively, and continue improving products past the point many companies would call finished.

What You'll Own

• Own mechanical development of consumer electronics products or major product workstreams from concept through mass production
• Translate Industrial Design intent into robust, manufacturable mechanical architectures
• Develop mechanisms, structural components, housings, interfaces, and electromechanical assemblies
• Create production-ready 3D CAD, engineering drawings, GD&T, tolerance stacks, and manufacturing specifications
• Integrate PCBAs, sensors, motors, batteries, wiring, and other electromechanical components into complete product assemblies
• Define mechanical requirements and trade-offs across ID, EE, and firmware
• Build and test prototypes in our in-house shop; run DOEs, reliability testing, tolerance analysis, DFMEA, and root-cause investigations
• Drive DFM/DFA reviews with component suppliers, tooling vendors, and final assembly manufacturers
• Support tooling development, T0/T1 builds, first articles, pilot production, validation builds, and mass-production ramp. Resolve manufacturing and field failures through data-driven root-cause analysis and corrective action
• Travel internationally to suppliers and manufacturing partners as required by product development and launch schedules

What We're Looking For

How You Work

• Passionate and relentless about detail. You notice things other people overlook.
  A tolerance that does not make sense, a slight change in mechanism feel, an inconsistent gap, an unexplained test result, or a manufacturing assumption without evidence bothers you enough to investigate it.
  You understand that excellent consumer products are often separated from average ones by hundreds of small engineering decisions. “Good enough” is not automatically good enough.
• Curious, self-directed, and current. You find your own answers, propose better approaches, and actively use emerging tools — including AI — to improve research, analysis, and decision-making.
• Agile, with a DRI mindset. Our DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) culture means complete ownership of your tasks, projects, and products — and learning fast to adapt to new missions.

What You Bring

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering
• 3+ years in consumer or consumer electronics products, with at least one taken to mass production
• Fluency in 3D CAD; Creo preferred, with strong experience in NX, SolidWorks, or CATIA also considered
• Working knowledge of injection molding, die casting, extrusion, and sheet metal fabrication
• Strong fundamentals in mechanism design, tolerance analysis, and failure analysis
• Hands-on prototyping skill — FDM and SLA 3D printing, shop fabrication, and the instinct to build and measure rather than wait
• Excellent verbal and written communication, with the ability to present technical findings and align requirements across ID, EE, firmware, and overseas vendors

About us

We're a mature company with the soul of a start-up. We value ingenuity, precise communications, fast iteration and scrappiness. Our teams are tight-knit with a work hard, play hard tradition – we take pride in individual and team success and push boundaries to make the best products. And we only build products we love to use ourselves. Great benefits, competitive compensation, and generous Simplehuman product discounts.