Hardware Prototype and Test Engineer

Company: CHEFFY

Location: Fremont, CA - in person

Hours: Flexible, approximately 10–20 hours/week

Pay: $35–60/hour depending on experience, breadth of hands-on skills, and ability to independently own prototype and test workstreams

About the Role

CHEFFY is seeking a hands-on hardware prototyping generalist to help build, refine, and test robots for the home kitchen. This role involves independently owning small hardware prototyping and test workstreams from problem to answer, preparing for manufacturing.

Key Responsibilities

• Assembling prototypes
• FDM and resin 3D printing of engineering test parts, fixtures, and component variations, including selecting orientation, supports, materials, and print settings
• Designing and building test jigs and fixtures
• Modifying CAD and designing prototype parts, mounts, adapters, and fixtures
• Sanding, finishing, drilling, tapping, fitment, fastening, and mechanical assembly
• Diagnosing fit, tolerance, alignment, wear, and mechanism issues and implementing practical fixes
• Soldering, crimping, wiring, electronics assembly, and basic electrical troubleshooting
• Durability and repeated-cycle testing
• Measuring forces, temperatures, dimensions, and other hardware performance
• Designing and running practical experiments to compare prototype variations
• Testing induction systems, cooking performance, recipes, and toaster functionality
• Using common shop, hand, and power tools
• Clearly documenting measurements, observations, photos, failures, and conclusions
• Potentially helping communicate technical findings to suppliers and manufacturing partners

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Comfort with FDM 3D printing and troubleshooting
• Comfort with Resin 3D printing and post-processing
• Experience with CAD modifications, ideally in Fusion 360 and/or SolidWorks
• Experience with mechanical assembly, fitment, drilling, sanding, fastening, and general fabrication
• Experience with soldering, wire stripping, and crimping
• Experience with calipers, multimeters, and other measurement and test tools
• Familiarity with common shop, hand, and power tools such as a drill press, rotary tools, and sanders
• Ability to work through practical hardware problems independently without needing detailed step-by-step instructions

Experience with CNC machining, electronics, jig and fixture design, machining, or other fabrication methods is a plus.

Qualifications

• Confident building, modifying, troubleshooting, and testing physical hardware
• Ability to take initiative to solve multidisciplinary engineering challenges with limited direction
• Demonstrated hands-on capability
• Practical problem-solving skills
• Ability to work independently

Examples, photos, or links showing physical hardware that you've personally designed, built, modified, repaired, or troubleshot are strongly encouraged.

Next Steps

• A small paid trial work session using a real CHEFFY build/test task will be conducted.
• If a good fit on both sides, the opportunity can extend into ongoing part-time work.

Questions? Email [email protected].