People Matter

Mechanical Engineer

Reflex Robotics

Reflex Robotics

New York, NY, USA
Posted on May 1, 2024

Company Overview

Reflex Robotics is building affordable ($10k) humanoid robots to automate dangerous and repetitive tasks in manufacturing / logistics. We envision a future where everyone has their own robot that can do the boring stuff and help them focus on more fulfilling work.

We are 20 months old, raised $7m led by Khosla Ventures, and have $60m/year of revenue lined up pending successful pilots with e-commerce warehouses in 2024.

How does it work?

Our robots are designed & built in-house by an engineering team that led development of the Stretch robot at Boston Dynamics & key parts of the Model S,X,Y production line at Tesla. Reflex robots are high-performance, low-inertia, and designed for low-cost manufacturing.

We've also built a tele-operation system by which someone up to 3000 miles away can basically “play a video game” and control the robots in real-time. This lets us do a LOT of tasks on day one, increase autonomy over time, and still have remote operators as needed to ensure that our robots don't make mistakes.

Key company beliefs

  • Having high quality proprietary data is the key to building generational AI companies. Tesla FSD has 1B+ miles of driver data & ChatGPT has the whole internet - but there is no good dataset in robotics.

  • It is pointless to focus on overly academic things (e.g. maximal torque density, 0.1mm actuator precision, getting bipedal robots to walk) instead of actual usefulness to customers.

  • Human prosperity increases super-linearly with increased automation. Freedom from dull & repetitive tasks allows us to focus on more rewarding pursuits.

  • An insane work ethic is necessary for outsized success.

What we’re looking for

We are looking for mechanical design engineers to join our team! We’re still under ten people - so there’s a ton of opportunity for high equity & high product ownership. You should strongly consider applying if:

  • You like to understand the entire system you’re working with and making multidisciplinary trade offs - e.g. actuators, power electronics, communication protocols, controls approaches, structures, etc.

  • You have a good understanding of manufacturing processes - e.g. machining, injection molding, sheet metal, weldments, casting, etc.

  • You have hands-on experience building things and are able to write clear documentation to manage technicians.

  • You are skilled with detailed CAD assemblies and drawings. We use Solidworks.

  • You have shipped production hardware and pride yourself on making robust assemblies that last for years.

You’d be joining at a time when there’s working hardware, working remote-operation software, and a qualified set of pilot customers – the company is de-risked enough to see the hazy outlines of success, but not so large that there’s no remaining upside.

Come join us!