Mechanical Engineer (f/m/d)

About TACTILIA

At TACTILIA, we are building the industry-ready robotic hand that closes one of the biggest gaps in Physical AI. Spun out of SCHUNK, the global market leader in gripping technology, we combine a decade of robotic-hand expertise and real industrial access with the speed and ambition of a deep-tech startup.

This isn't a research project waiting for its first customer. We already have a product, customers are ready to use it, and we are launching now. Your work will directly shape the electronics, actuators, and embedded systems that make that possible.

You will join at the moment when the hard engineering questions become real product decisions: how do we make a highly capable robotic hand reliable, manufacturable, serviceable, and simple enough to deploy on a real shop floor?

The Role

You design the mechanics of our robotic hands — from the kinematics of a single finger to a complete hand ready for series production.

Multiple drives, gear trains, tendons, tactile sensors and electronics have to fit into a human-sized envelope while surviving hundreds of thousands of cycles. Every millimetre matters, and almost every design decision affects another discipline.

You work hands-on between CAD, test rig and workshop, and report to the CTO.

What you will do:

• CAD design. Design components, mechanisms and assemblies within tightly constrained envelopes, owning the design from concept through production release.

• Mechanism & kinematics. Design finger and thumb kinematics, tendon and spindle drives, joints and bearings. Calculate motion envelopes, trajectories, gripping forces and transmission ratios.

• Calculation & validation. Validate designs through structural and fatigue calculations, FEA, tolerance stack-ups and GD&T before parts are manufactured.

• Material selection. Select and qualify materials for lightweight structures, wear surfaces, tendons and elastomeric gripping surfaces, and characterise their behaviour under real loads and contact conditions.

• Assembly design. Design assemblies for efficient assembly, adjustment-free interfaces, serviceability and repair. Specify the required fixtures and tooling.

• Design for manufacturing. Design for the intended manufacturing process from the outset — machining, injection moulding, sheet metal, additive manufacturing — balancing cost, tolerances and production volumes.

• Prototyping & testing. Build prototypes, design test rigs and endurance setups, run cycle and load tests, and drive failures to root cause.

• Documentation & release. Create drawings and BOMs, manage design changes and configuration, and support product development reviews.

• Suppliers & production. Work with machine shops, material suppliers and manufacturing partners from first prototype through pilot series and production ramp-up.

• Cross-functional integration. Work closely with Electronics, Sensors and Software to align packaging, interfaces and load paths across the complete system.

What you bring:

• Degree in mechanical engineering, mechatronics, precision engineering, or a comparable qualification.

• 5–10 years of experience in mechanical design of precision mechatronic products, including at least one product taken through to series production.

• Advanced 3D CAD skills in CATIA, NX, SolidWorks, Creo or comparable systems, with confident 2D drawing creation and GD&T.

• Strong understanding of mechanism design: linkages, gear trains, bearings, shafts, power transmission, backlash and stiffness.

• Experience with FEA, structural and fatigue analysis, and tolerance calculations as part of everyday design work.

• Strong knowledge of material selection for lightweight, high-load and wear-critical components.

• Practical DFM/DFA experience across multiple manufacturing processes.

• Hands-on mentality — you build the prototype, run the test and analyse the broken part yourself.

• Fluent in English and German.

Bonus:

• Experience with robotic hands, grippers, prosthetics or similarly highly integrated mechanisms.

• Experience with compact drive trains, including planetary, harmonic or cycloidal gearing, spindle drives and actuator integration.

• Experience with elastomers, soft goods, injection moulding of complex geometries or compliant structures.

• Experience integrating tactile or force sensors into mechanical structures.

• Experience with multi-body simulation or topology optimisation.

• Knowledge of Machinery Regulation, ISO/TS 15066 and mechanical design for collaborative applications.

The next chapter of robotics won't be built in a lab. It will be built by people who care about what happens when technology meets the real world.

At TACTILIA, you'll work on one of the hardest open problems in robotics: giving machines the dexterity, reliability and robustness to interact with the physical world at industrial scale.

The technology is taking shape, the team is being built, and the standards around robotic hands and their skills are still open. That means your decisions will have a lasting impact — not just on a product, but on what comes next for Physical AI.

Build the hand. Define the standard. Shape what comes next.

If you're excited by the challenge of building robotic hands that works reliably in the real world, we'd love to hear from you.

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