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Product Design Engineer (Early Career)

Skydio· R&D
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Hybrid (San Mateo, California, United States)$132k - $175kFull-timePosted 4d ago

About the role

Skydio is seeking a Product Design Engineer (Early Career) to design mechanical parts and assemblies for aircraft, ground stations, and accessories, collaborating with electrical, manufacturing, and operations teams throughout the hardware lifecycle from prototypes to mass production.

Responsibilities

  • Design mechanical parts and assemblies for our aircraft, ground stations, and accessories, working alongside senior engineers on new architectures and taking ownership of components as you grow.
  • Partner with electrical engineers to integrate custom PCBAs, flex circuits, antennas, and cable harnesses into mechanical designs.
  • Work with vendors on technical questions and part reviews, in collaboration with our operations and supply chain teams.
  • Plan and run engineering tests, and use analysis to evaluate design trade-offs and verify that your parts perform as intended.
  • Follow your designs through the full development cycle, from early prototypes to pre-production and mass production, and help our manufacturing teams with assembly processes and quality and inspection criteria.
  • Investigate and debug failures, digging into the details to find root causes.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering or a related field.
  • 0-3 years of hands-on product or hardware experience through internships, co-ops, student design teams (e.g., Formula SAE, robotics, rocketry), research, or personal projects.
  • Strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to use them to solve open-ended design problems.
  • Proficiency in 3D CAD (CATIA, SolidWorks, NX, Creo, or similar), including building multi-part assemblies.
  • Familiarity with common manufacturing processes such as injection molding, CNC machining, casting, or sheet metal, and how they affect design decisions.
  • Ability to create clear mechanical drawings, or eagerness to build this skill with mentorship.
  • Curiosity, attention to detail, and a love of well-designed hardware.
  • A collaborative mindset and comfort working in a fast-paced environment where priorities shift.

Skills

Required:Mechanical design3D CADManufacturing process knowledge
Nice to have:Drawing/crafting mechanical drawings

Benefits

  • Mentorship from experienced mechanical engineers and regular design reviews.
  • Hands-on exposure to the whole hardware lifecycle on products that ship at scale.
  • A growing scope of ownership as you show what you can do.
  • Regular, full-time employees are eligible for group health insurance plans.
  • Paid vacation time, sick leave, holiday pay and 401K savings plan.
Last updated Oct 22, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Skydio

A family of flying robots.

AI-powered autonomous drones for Drone as First Responder (DFR), critical infrastructure inspection, tactical ISR, site security, surveying and mapping

DronesAutonomous SystemsInspectionSecurityMappingPublic SafetyNational Security
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