Technical Soft Goods Designer

Responsibilities

• Design and integrate compliant or flexible materials into mechanical subsystems and rigid hardware interfaces.
• Leverage FEA tools to characterize material behavior under operational loads, including tension, compression, abrasion, fatigue, and environmental exposure.
• Develop test methods and validation protocols to evaluate durability, performance, and failure modes of soft components.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to transition early prototypes into manufacturable designs.
• Source and evaluate materials in collaboration with supply chain partners and specialty fabricators.
• Work with contract manufacturers on fabrication methods such as bonding, lamination, molding, overmolding, cut-and-sew, and composite layups.
• Analyze system-level tradeoffs between compliance, durability, manufacturability, and integration constraints.
• Document material specifications, test data, and mechanical performance to support design iteration and production readiness.
• Investigate field failures and iterate designs based on observed wear patterns and performance degradation.

Requirements

• Understand mechanical tradeoffs in elastomers, foams, textiles, and flexible composites.
• Enjoy working across the full lifecycle from early prototyping through production.
• Can develop test fixtures or experiments to characterize material or assembly behavior.
• Are comfortable collaborating with both design and manufacturing partners.
• Are detail-oriented and rigorous about documentation and repeatability.

Nice-to-Haves

• Degree in mechanical engineering or equivalent.
• Experience with A-surface and cosmetic component development.
• Experience integrating soft or compliant components into robotic, wearable, medical, automotive, or industrial hardware systems.
• Familiarity with environmental or durability testing (abrasion, ingress, cyclic loading, UV, temperature).
• Experience working with contract manufacturers or specialty fabricators.
• Familiarity with material characterization methods for flexible materials.
• Experience transitioning flexible-material prototypes into production designs.